Abstract
In recent years, survey methods in census taking are changing in Europe and North America. This paper explores the abolition of the long-form questionnaire and its consequences in the 2011 Census of Canada. In June 2010, the government of Canada cancelled the mandatory long-form census questionnaire because of privacy protection. As the National Household Survey, which replaced the long-form census questionnaire, was voluntary, the nationwide response rate was 68.6 per cent. The non-response bias may be high, therefore this shift results not only in a loss in data quality, but also a loss in comparability with the previous censuses.
