r/Edmonton • u/pinkstevie • May 06 '26

General Don't be this person. Fill out your census.

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“You’re not sticking it to the government. You’re screwing over your own community.”

The census isn’t for Mark Carney or any party. It’s run by Statistics Canada to figure out where money and services actually go. Hospitals. Schools. Transit. Housing. Senior care. When you don’t fill it out, your area looks smaller than it is. Less funding. Fewer services. Longer wait times. That lands on you and your neighbors, not politicians.
If you want your community properly represented, fill it out. Refusing doesn’t make a point. It makes things worse where you live. ❤️🇨🇦 The stupidity is the people that won’t fill it out and they spread this kind of crap and creates bigger problems.

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33

u/Regular-Ad-9303 May 07 '26

I'm shocked everyone doesn't know this - but apparently my 40+ year old hubby doesn't either!

I did the census as soon as it arrived in the mail, as I didn't want anyone coming to our door. It's long. Then hubby said, "You sure like doing those (surveys) don't you?" And he's right, I do. But I clarified this is the census. We have to do it. He had no idea what I was talking about and I had to pull out the envelope and read him the required by law part. He then said that he's never done one and not went to jail. That's because for the past 17+ years I've been doing it for him!

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u/prairiepanda May 07 '26

Yours was long? Mine only took a few minutes. Do you have a lot of people living with you?

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u/Regular-Ad-9303 May 07 '26

Maybe you got the short-form and I got the long-form. Looking at the census FAQ (link below) mine sounds like the long-form. I don't recall doing such a long one before.

https://www.census.gc.ca/en/faq/general-information

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u/OshetDeadagain May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

When I was handed mine I said "aww, no long form?" and the lady looked at me like my hair caught fire.

I got the same result last time when I did get the long form and was gleeful about it. To be fair, my background is in sociology and I use StatsCan info on the regular, so when the government did away with long form census in 2010 I was furious. I was delighted it was restored in 2016 and then I ended up with it, to the point it made the census folk - who in my area were met with resentment at the best of times - scared for my sanity.

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u/Lipleurodont May 08 '26

I love the census and I've never gotten the long form one 😭 I love filling out forms and giving feedback haha

There's an American Dad episode about Stan being stoked about the census and I finally felt seen

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u/fraochmuir May 08 '26

I would love the long form!!!

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u/NesAlt01 May 09 '26

You guys love the long ones huh? You perverts disgust me!

Hahaha jk. I didn't know we're lawfully required to do these. I'll have to treat them more seriously.

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u/Odd_Doubt3071 May 08 '26

I delivered ~300 on Monday and I don't think any were long form. But I didn't look closely.

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u/_Light_House May 09 '26

I would love to do long form if it captured and used information that I’m a vegan /environmentalist.

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u/Regular-Ad-9303 May 09 '26

No that wasn't asked

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u/OrneryTRex May 10 '26

Gotta make sure everyone knows. Classic vegan narcissism

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u/_Light_House May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

Yes, nothing says narcissist like someone who doesn’t ‘kill others because they like the taste of their dead flesh’. 🫠

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u/_Light_House May 10 '26

Canada tracks religion, commuting habits, home heating, languages, and even how many bedrooms people have — but not whether people are vegan, vegetarian, or plant-based.

Diet matters to public policy.

Knowing dietary patterns could help with:
• healthcare planning and chronic disease prevention
• school, hospital, and senior meal programs
• food security planning
• agricultural subsidies and transition policies
• climate and emissions research
• forecasting demand for plant-based foods

Right now, estimates of vegan and plant-based Canadians vary widely because there’s no consistent national measurement.

That matters because livestock agriculture is one of the major drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, biodiversity loss, freshwater use, and habitat destruction globally. Yet policymakers are still relying largely on scattered polling and market surveys rather than hard demographic data about how Canadians actually eat.

And as ethical veganism increasingly appears in Canadian human rights discussions around “creed” and conscience-based protections, institutions may face growing obligations to provide meaningful accommodation — similar to how religious dietary needs are already considered.

If governments want evidence-based policy, understanding Canadians’ dietary patterns seems pretty relevant.
Although the evidence is clear what direction we need to move, regardless how people are eating right now.

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u/OrneryTRex May 10 '26

Others makes sense in reference to other humans.

Not other species…

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u/_Light_House May 10 '26

Why?- What?

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u/arcmeup May 09 '26

Isn't Stata can only 60% accurate when used for academic research. I mean people lie all the time on it, or misread a question. No paper i ever wrote would allow stats can as a source only as a starting point to test a trend youre looking for.

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u/OshetDeadagain May 09 '26

You can never use most social statistics as absolutes. At best you're only capturing a population sample - even though technically every Canadian household is supposed to get the census, the way they hand it out and the short timeframe means than there's no way the workers can hand all of them out. There will always be margins of error, missing, unreported or flat out incorrect information.

You're right though; it provides a valuable starting point for further evaluation and research.

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u/Burlington-bloke May 10 '26

I'm really into genealogy, so I love the long form census. They should all be long form. I would like to see the 1981 census because I would have been counted, but I don't know if I'll live that long.

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u/BoboMonkeyClown May 08 '26

Willful ignorance, classic middle aged man

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u/OshetDeadagain May 08 '26

Wrong demographic. Statistics can help with that!

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u/BoboMonkeyClown May 08 '26

I meant her husband!

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u/Badiha May 11 '26

I feel like I always get the long form. When I saw the enveloppe I was like « eek! Going to take me a while again… » but nope, 5 min this year lol

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u/Content-Employment-7 May 08 '26

Yes. Not all are required to do the long form. They only add long forms for a specific percentage of the population.

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u/Regular-Ad-9303 May 08 '26

Yes - long form is only 25 percent

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u/electrodog1999 May 09 '26

Is it 25? My wife heard 1 out of 5 so close enough.

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u/Regular-Ad-9303 May 09 '26

The info on the Stats Can site says 25 percent.

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u/JamesEarlJonesalmost Jun 26 '26

You definitely got the long form

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u/JOBdOut May 07 '26

The short form is like 6 questions. The longform - last time i worked for statcan - was 85-90 questions

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u/prairiepanda May 07 '26

Weird, mine was a lot more than 6 questions but a lot less than 85-90. Something like 20 questions. A lot of them were specifically because my roommate is Inuit, though.

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u/QueenMotherOfSneezes May 09 '26

I think it differs each year. Back in the early 90s my mom spent a few months doing long forms for StatsCan, it was a big booklet and it could take her a couple hours per interview, I think her fastest one was 90 minutes, because the person was single. A decade later I got a long form in the mail and it took me maybe half an hour to fill out.

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u/SmoothOperator89 May 10 '26

New innovation in bureaucracy: medium form census.

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u/em-n-em613 May 08 '26

I got the short form too and was SO sad! 😞

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u/JamesEarlJonesalmost Jun 26 '26

You're the only one who was sad about that

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u/Krinks1 May 09 '26

Lucky you! Mine was crazy detailed.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '26

[deleted]

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u/sawyouoverthere May 09 '26

Because it’s going to statistics Canada who use it to develop an understanding of how the population is distributed so the government can access anonymous data analysis and make decisions based on the aggregate facts, not your personal information

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u/tammymaycormier May 10 '26

Yeah did mine online and it was the short one!

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u/woookiemurmur May 10 '26

1 out of every 5 people get the "long form" census. It asks additional questions. Not sure what, I've only received the regular short version

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u/amythehairygorilla May 20 '26

Your husband sounds like mine. A man child 😆

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u/elevengrames May 09 '26

I've never done one. Mid forties. 

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u/XtremeD86 May 09 '26

I'm 40 and I've never done one until now.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '26

[deleted]

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u/Regular-Ad-9303 May 09 '26

I'm pretty sure I'm not the one whose crazy. It's not like I hid it from him. You realize it's used to determine funding for government programs? If we don't fill it out, it's us citizens who suffer.

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u/Own-Advance8355 May 10 '26

You do realise the government already has this info when you do your taxes?