National Household Survey: Immigration

Business Economics Dept: The survey comes as a growing number of groups are speaking out against the proposed change, saying it will degrade the quality of information on everything from city planning to school sizes and immigrant income levels. On Thursday, the Canadian Bar Association, which represents about 37,000 lawyers in the country, called on the government to keep the mandatory long form, according to Globe And Mail. The economists’ survey showed 192 economists think it’s bad policy to ditch the census while 14 agree it’s good policy. Four were not willing to answer, 30 didn’t know and 12 did not answer. It also found eight in ten economists say the new survey will result in a loss of comparability with previous censuses, meaning they won’t be able to analyze changes over time. The association will release details of the survey next month and the Canadian Association for Business Economics poll found that 76 per cent of 252 respondents surveyed last week say they do not believe it is good policy to replace the mandatory long-form census with a voluntary national household survey. “There is no substitute for the census. It is the foundation of our household information set,” said Paul Jacobson, vice-president of the economics association. The switch means “we’re spending more money for less quality – that’s the part a lot of us find offensive.” As reported in the news.
@t paul jacobson, economics association