Recent PostsThe “Need” for Data
May 15, 2026
As the make-work project otherwise known as the census continues to be a thing in Canada, we keep hearing from defenders of this “mandatory” questionnaire as to how much we “need” this data. It’s vital for planning services, they say.
So when looking at the long form (You did order a paper questionnaire and made them work, didn’t you? Tell me you didn’t make it easy for them by filling it out online. Please.), several questions pertaining to your dwelling intrigued me. As did many others, mind you. But that’s for another day.
- Is this dwelling part of a condominium development?
- How many rooms are there in this dwelling?
- How many of these rooms are bedrooms?
- When was this dwelling originally built?
- What are the yearly property taxes for this dwelling?
- If you were to sell this dwelling now, for how much would you expect to sell it?
So they really “need” us to supply this data, do they? Well, here’s a novel idea. How about they download it from the province or respective municipality? In the case of Winnipeg, where I checked, the entire property assessment database is available for free download, as I’m sure it is anywhere else across the country. Included for each and every property in the city, among other things, are the number of rooms, number of storeys, total square footage of both the property and the land, assessed value, year the house was built and whether it’s a single-family dwelling or a condo. For Winnipeg, they even track whether there’s air conditioning or a pool, again, as I’m sure they do in other municipalities.
They don’t have to pass any special legislation or file for any freedom of information request or even ask anyone. Heck, I could download it, easily import the comma-delimited file into any database engine of my choosing and do whatever I wanted with it. I presume the people at Statistics Canada have IT people on their payroll quite capable of doing exactly that. Up-to-the-minute and accurate. Except for properties like my next-door neighbor’s, where they didn’t get a building permit for their large outbuilding constructed near the property line complete with new plumbing and electrical. Or the guy across the street who had an outbuilding of his own constructed last year and didn’t get a building permit. Or the guy down the street who’s getting a pool put in and didn’t get a building permit. But I digress.
So the next time someone tries to tell you how much you’re cheating your community by not filling out the census, just go through the form. Count the number of places where the information is practically right at their fingertips. Including everything they’d ever want to know about the dwelling you live in and a lot more.
And then tell me that the census remains vital.
Spoiler alert. You probably can’t.
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