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Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Stats Canada NHS Survey: The First Big OOPS

I spent months arguing that the changes to Canada's long form census would degrade the data from it.  Today we are starting to see proof.  Although most of the damage will come at the lower geographic levels, there appears to be evidence that some of the head-line numbers will be effected as well. From the analytic document "Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity in Canada"

Top source countries for newcomers

 The NHS results showed that the Philippines was the leading country of birth among people who immigrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011.(3) 

However, go to footnote (3).  It reads:


So in effect Stats Canada is saying that they cannot reliably tell us which country provided Canada the largest share of immigrats during the 2006/2011 period.  A rather glaring flaw, if you ask  me.
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2 comments:

  1. double nickel11:02 AM

    I'm sure the MSM will dutifully ignore any reliability issues.

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  2. jrkrideau1:15 PM

    The Harper gov't has no desire to have any scientific information going into their decision-making and I am sure they will deride the results since StatCan seems to be honestly pointing out how bad things may be. Oh obviosly those bureaucrats messed up our bright idea and we will have to go with gut feelings.

    It was clear from the first that cancelling the Long Form was incredibly stupid: just what one would expect from this gov't. I wonder just how this is going to play out with a lot of right-wing people who rely on the census data to make reasonable decisions.


    @double nickel
    Actually CBC has touched on it already though I am not sure that they actually used the word "reliability", a technical term not everyone would recognize, but just how bad the survey looks was clear.

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