Re: Globe and Mail discussion re 2006 Census

Posted by Tracey P. Lauriault-2 on May 15, 2006; 8:25pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Globe-and-Mail-discussion-re-2006-Census-tp585p589.html

All standard data are available for free/no cost! Oh lala! not true!

The data at the level of your neighbourhood are standard but are not available for free/no cost and those are  - Census Tracts (CT), District Administration Areas (DA), city wards, and so on.

For example if you go here - http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/standard/popdwell/Table-FED-P.cfm?PR=35; you will get a table of data, without the federal electoral district number, so you cannot map without some work, and this is still a large geography, what you would also want for community mapping are the DA or CTs within those boundaries so that you can actually look at other density issues. etc. You would also want if you are so inclined, the map! 

Finally, for anyone doing statistical analysis, cross tabulations and a much broader range of data  are all available from Data Liberation Initiative (DLI), and these are all standard, but alas they are not available to those not in academia (university).  StatCan could in fact just make all those data available in their beyond 20 20 interface on the net (perhaps even a better UI) and then we would have all the standard data available for free.

The 2001 data available on the StatCan web are not the complete 2001 census variables either!

We should write a letter to the journalist and ask stat to explain what standard are!
urgh!


Ted Hildebrandt wrote:

The Globe and Mail had a live discussion with Anil Arora, census manager for Statistics Canada, regarding the 2006 Census. Below is the link to the questions and answers from the session.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060512.wcensus0515/BNStory/specialComment/home

Of particular interest is the following Q & A.

--snip--

Chris Schnurr from Windsor, Canada writes: If the census is a legal obligation why is accessing this information, researched and produced with tax-payer money, subject to fees to purchase information that I have already bought?

Anil Arora, manager of the 2006 census, writes:Chris Schnurr: The overwhelming majority of the data disseminated from the census is available on our website free of charge. We only charge for data when a specific organization or individual request data that is not standard or for re-distribution purposes. Tax payers should not have to subsidize such requests which are mainly for very specific purposes or for revenue generation.

--unsnip--

---------------------------------------
Ted Hildebrandt
Director of Social Planning
Community Development Halton
860 Harrington Court
Burlington, Ontario  L7N 3N4 Canada
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [hidden email]
Web: www.cdhalton.ca
     www.volunteerhalton.ca

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