National Inuit Leader Mary Simon Asks Federal Government to Reconsider Decision to Eliminate the Mandatory Long Form Census

Friday July 9, 2010 – Ottawa, Ontario – National Inuit leader Mary Simon, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami questioned a recent federal cabinet decision to discontinue the long form census, a decision reportedly imposed on Statistics Canada. This decision will diminish the availability of comparable data between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians.

“Inuit have worked very closely with Statistics Canada,” underlined Mary Simon. “We have signed working agreements on the collection of very specific data for the Aboriginal Peoples Survey (APS), and Inuit have been trained as data collectors, using the long form, for the general Census. In our long term goal of closing the gaps in health, education, and economic conditions among our people and communities and other Canadians, building long-term comparable data is a key element. This ill-conceived cabinet decision impacts our ability to work towards that goal.”

“The long form census is one of the key tools Inuit use to understand the size of our populations and assess the conditions in which our people live, including the level of social disparity. Without it our current data systems will be severely disabled. For example recent studies which use one statistic – comparable data on life expectancy between Inuit and the average Canadian – would not have been possible without the existence of long form census data. For the record, the gap in life expectancy between Inuit and Canadians is 13 years and growing. This gap is not acceptable in this country, and the decision to eliminate the long form census will make it more difficult to capture accurate statistics on a wide range of health and social conditions affecting Inuit and Inuit communities.”

“Canada prides itself on the quality and completeness of its census process. Statistics Canada does not take a back seat to any similar agency in the western world. This decision is clearly a step backwards for Inuit and the Canadian census,” said Mary Simon. “I ask the Federal Government to reconsider this decision.”