Are you filling out the form or filling it out on line? Joseph and Mary did not have this luxury - They had to travel.

 I'm filling mine out online, while I ride a donkey.

On line, just got a form that said to do that yesterday.  The census was short but then i got "selected" to do another questionaire that took about 30 minutes and had lots of info for all the family.  It was kind of fun.

Some things they asked were our gas, electrical, water and property tax bills

Filled out the short form online.   Wish that the long form was still for everyone.  The information is important.

Note: no animals were injured in the filling or filing of this census.

I wasn't riding a donkey when I filled mine out on-line - was very short and didn't take long.

This is the only time i have ever been given a long form and i am not even sure that was what it was.  It was long and took lots of time but it was a separate "family information " form.  beats me but I was directed to do it so I did

I haven't filled out very many of these census forms in my lifetime.

This one was like cheap sex -- BAM! over!  And for age, marital status, who is living at my domicile, and am I planning on selling my tractor?

And that will help the government???

I liked the long form...it was like being able to tell a story :3

LOL. I love their version of that song.

Trivia Alert! It's actually referring to a donkey engine, an early steam engine used for unloading timber from ships.

Mendalla

haven't got one yet.

never before have I ever gotten a long form.  It took a long time to do this on line one, at least the second part of it.

But I like surveys so it was fun

I filled it out fairly quickly. I had to wonder what implications there were to agree to having my "consensus"  information on file for another 90 years. Why?

So your name can go into the next chapter of the bible,waterfall

THe information will be on file no matter what.  The question was whether it can be made publicly available after 92 years.  For genealogical work the release of census records is  invaluable.

Apparently if you don't fill it out there is a penalty of either a $500 fine or jail time (although nobody has ever actually spent time in jail in Canada for not filling out their form).

I haven't actually done mine yet - just got back from two days away to find it sitting on my table. I'll probably do it online.

i laughed that we were asked permission to have the information disclosed in 92 years...sure, if anyone is interested, 92 yrs.from now, in that little bit of information, go for it. I'm not sure how helpful it will be. 

I remember filling out the long form in the previous census.  It was interesting and I could see the logic in having some of the information - like how many hours do you spend volunteering, and do you provide care for a senior in your home? 

Some, I didn't know how to answer.  I was a senior (a very young senior) and one question was about how many hours a week do I spend with seniors.  Well, I'm in a senior bowling league, and I play cards with friends.  Does that count?   I did keep score, and I looked after the league statistics, and I occasionally phoned someone who had missed a couple of times, and yes, I did occasionally help some of the older members of the league with tying their shoes or reminding them of their turn.  I guess that was volunteering.   And when I played cards I was providing companionship and helping seniors keep their minds allert - of course they were doing the same for me.

Do you recall a question on religion in the Long Form?

Yes.  they asked which religion you belonged to including none.  I think it was one of the questions that you typed in the answer rather than select from what would be a very long list of names.

they asked for religion of all members who lived in the house as of May 10th.  Oddly that was to include visitors.

that did strike me as unusual.  They wanted to knwo everything as of May 10th but did allow you to do it earlier.  But if you had a visitor on that date who was styaing with you, they wanted that persons info.

they asked for names, addresses, jobs, schooling, religion, expenses for each person.  If you were looking for work, what type of work, addresses of jobs,

This one didn't ask for any health info.

For those of you in Ontario there is a very comprehensive voluntary health survey at

www.ontariohealthstudy.ca

I did it a few weeks ago and is a very comprehensive look at lifestyle and health.  Worth doing

Yep, there is.

The results of this one should be very, very interesting.

There was no religion question on my form.

I did my census form on-line - and it just had a few basic questions.

I went to help daughter fill out hers on-line and hers was quite a bit longer.  I started to panic wondering if I had not gone far enough in the questionnaire and missed some !  Oh well, perhaps if I did it wrong and get sent to the pen for not completing the census I will have access to a computer and all you wonderpersons can visit me via Wondercafe!

There is a short form and a long form version.  One out of three (randomly selected) households get the long form.

Only the long form gets the religion question.

So not really a good reference for "religion".

Sorry, what do you mean by this?

Interesting I have seen nothing of either a long or short form- If I had not seen this site i would not have known anything about this.

This is what I was referring to. The results would not be accurate to determine an accurate account for religion in canadian homes.

Last time I received the long form. This time I received the short form. This information and more would have been with REVENUE cANADA.

???

One in three households in Canada is not a sufficient sample size?  Where did you study statistics?

Just occurred to me, albeit a bit late. How many have given permission for their info to surface in 92 yrs? If used responsibly, it could glean some information about household and family structure of our current civilization. However, if there is a tyranical extremist government in 92 yrs, the info could be used to profile people who were born to unmarried couples, ethnic minorities (based on first language)...what do you think? The latter thought is scary. 

...or the grandchildren of the above mentioned people.

...however if extremist tyrants are in power, they will do what they want anyway.

You're forgetting, Chansen, that the long form is no longer mandatory thanks to Mr. Harper. They can send it to one in three homes but if the response rate isn't high now that it's voluntary, the statistics may not be as valid as when it was included under the mandatory part of the legislation.

Mendalla

It will, I expect, show the continuing decline of religiousity in Canada.  I understand that the penalty for not completing it is no longer in place, and I don't agree with this, but I also know it was never enforced in the first place.

The return rate was about 94% before, so if we get close to that, we can still learn a lot about demographics in general, and specifically in this question, just what percentage of Canadians still consider themselves as part of a religion.

What we should have done, is launch a campaign to tell the truth on the census, as they did in Britain:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12637201

I filled my out online because I could find no room in the inn.  My form didn't ask about religion, but if I had, I would have put, 'Druid-Reformed'.

yup, I hope the Census will be able to tell the difference between Catholic religiosity and Catholic religion...oh wait, it can't :3

I hope people would tick the Other box and put in their unique, which is what it is, belief :3

Maybe they should just ask "do you believe in God?" yes or no.

Beloved - I worked for the census one year and can tell you that if you did make a mistake someone will contact you to fill in the blanks. They make lots of attempts to contact you before they take legal action.

A better question would be "Do you believe in any god, deity or other supernatural creator?"

And yes, I'd like to see a question like that asked.  Many will answer with the religion of their upbringing or culture, and not actually believe a word of it.

I think it's getting to be a more and more outdated question...I'd like to see another one asking for one's worldview.  Yes, that'd be better:  worldview!

Check all that apply:  are you, have you been, or are you going to be a(n):

Dualist
 

Monist
 

Kantian

Existentialist

Nihilist

atelelogical physicalist

(and so forth)

What the religion question shows us is where in the world you were likely to be born & what your culture is.

Chansen, I actually believe that more will answer that they believe in a God and rather not restrict it to a "religion".

Well - I just filled my form in tonight. We were selected to do the long form and I did choose to fill it out. It really was no big deal - it only took about 20 minutes to fill in.

Did mine a couple of days ago.  I was disappointed to only get the short form, as I was looking forward to the long one (retired people have time and there might have been some questions I could answer that would contribute to the understanding of both the problems and the contributions of seniors in our country.   I did the long one in the previous census.  I already mentioned that - seniors' moment. 

I received it. Filled it out and mailed it. Received another today. When I phoned to ask why I received it. She said, Just, a mistake. Throw it out". What?????

The Census is probably as important as having the right to vote; maybe MORE important in a liberal (small "l") democracy: it provides critical planning information for the delivery of every federal and provincial service from roads and town planning to health, education, policing, the location of government offices and even defence. It's a big factor in drawing electoral boundaries.

It was nuts for the Harper Government to spend $30 million making the long form Census statistically less valid on the specious grounds that coercion to give such information is "undemocratic": census information is critical to the working and functioning of a democracy. It is the single best, most reliable evaluation of government policy and its outcomes. Compromising its statistical validity by making it optional is, in fact, anti-democratic: it weakens the measurement of government impacts.

The crunch issue is confidentiality and, as far as I'm aware, Stats Can is pretty good at getting the information from Census forms quickly coded so it all is distributed across cross-referenced categories that give people who know what they're doing the ability to ask quite complicated questions about the way the society is working, about regional differences, income differences, health differences, educational differences, etc.

And your personal, private identity in the midst of this  very cleverly protected.

If you agree to let your personal information be released in 90+ years, it's so your descendants can more easily do a bit of genealogical reserach and so that historians can proble more deeply into the past, bygone social conditions and demographic shifts since... there's no harm there. And your information will be helpd under lock and key till then.

I've lived in free countries where census demands are FAR heavier, more extensive and where participation is far more strictly required. I've also seen people generally welcome Census time as a chance to be represented at the tables where decisions are being made.

It has NOTHING to do with religion, donkey-based or otherwise.

P.S. As I understand it, about 30 percent of us will be offered the long version before the Census is over. I encourage you to grab the opportunity!

Mine was the short version. After the "are you a farmer?" question it was pretty much done.

I was happy to see same-sex marriage as a relationship option on the census. Was it there before?

I remain the uninvited and therefore the unaccounted;

hmmm, does this make me unaccountable?

And Crazyheart gets two!

LB - neither long nor short

I am not a number, I am a free man.
     The Prisoner

LB since I live in the country it had to be hand delivered - maybe that is the case for you - mine came very late - returned it the same day.

Since I posted this thread, I have been wondering about people that are missed - street people, transients, and others in society who are forgotten

I am wondering how many of these folk are in Canada and are not counted.

That would be my explanation too, except my partner received his and I did not.  I spoke to the Census man who came to the retirement home I work at (it is done different, the residents don't have to fill out the forms, I just provided a list with the pertinent data - although this method does imply that people living in such places will not be providing any long form data which makes me wonder, but I digress) and he said he "wasn't surprised" and that he'd probably be "seeing you again soon" as it is his job to follow up on all the unknowns...

I can see that the mail-in is a better way to take the census -

I knew people who did this job and it was daunting.  I spoke to one young woman during the last one and she told me she'd had two terrifying experiences, in one case she was met with a man with a shot gun and the other dogs were let loose.  These were places way off the beaten trail and no one thought about warning her about these possibilities.  After those incidents she stopped traveling alone.

LB

The first census in 1790 asked just six questions: the name of the head of the household, the number of free white males older than 16, the number of free white males younger than 16, the number of free white females, the number of other free persons, and the number of slaves.
     Tom G. Palmer