Canada asks too little, or Ireland too much?

We filled in our 2006 Statistics Canada Census this weekend. It took a lot less time than I anticipated, with memories of a lot more questions when I filled out the census in Cork back in 2002. Our form for the two of us was only 22 questions as opposed to a possible 75 on the Irish form. Visiting the StatsCan website, it turns out only one in five households get the 53 question Census long form.

Same sex marriage being legal for this census means StatsCan are still trying to figure out a reliable way of indicating this on their forms. Egale are not happy with what they came up with.

Religion is only sampled every other census (10 years) so I didn't have a chance to put "Jedi" this time out.

There is disquiet in the blogosphere about Lockheed-Martin's involvement in processing the Census. This is because of alleged possible repatriation of data under the US Patriot Act but also in respect of Guantanamo Bay yadda yadda. While I feel having L-M or any other US company involved in the census was a stupid idea I can't help feeling an instinctive reaction to yell "ah don't be such a child" at the "spill coffee on the form" crowd. Don't know why - I just do.

Nice to see StatsCan stopped blocking Linux users from the online option for those of us who are busy collaborating with the military-industrial-bureaucratical complex.

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