Stand up and be counted. Or sit... whatever

Canadians from coast to coast (to coast - hmmm..., how many people actually do live in Alert?) dutifully filled out their census forms some time over the last month and a bit.

Presumably, our best statisticians will tell us we are nearing the 33 million mark. That would put the Americans about 10 times ahead, the Chinese about 45 times ahead - heck, even the South Koreans have nearly twice as many people as us living on a peninsula the size of Vancouver island. Fortunately, it's not a competition.

Not having actually filled one out before (I was living away from Canada last time the forms got mailed out) I was surprised at the sheer simplicity of the census form: no questions about income level, assets or employment status. Of course, they should have that information anyway from our income tax declarations, but since the census is being used to help decide where social services will be located, I would have thought the stats guys would want those primary determiners of social service usage handy.

No questions about sexual orientation, political affiliation, religious beliefs or level of support for overthrowing the establishment, either. The form takes about three minutes to fill out, including the time it takes to take the form out of the envelope and then seal it into the postage-paid one. If the census is an effort by our government (or the American NSA) to spy on Canadian citizens (as some people apparently think according to one article by Vancouver Courier staff writer Barry Link), it's a pretty inept way to go about it.

A summary of the 1901 Canadian census (published by Library and Archives Canada here) makes interesting reading. There was a smaller population to count (just 5,371,051) but 8,800 census enumerators had to go door to door across our great land, interviewing the "head " of the household - the oldest male.

The information taken down was essentially the same as that in the 2006 census, with one major exception: Colour. Citizens were required to choose "W" for white (Caucasians), "R" for red (Native Canadians), "B" for black (people of African descent), and "Y" for yellow (Asian). People of mixed Caucasian and other ethnicity were designated as members of the appropriate non-white race.

The 1901 census was the first year when people could mark down "divorced" as an option under their marriage status.

Also, the final count showed males outnumbered females by nearly 300,000 - one result of the prevalence of mining and lumber towns in Canada's developing economic landscape.

The real question is, will we include Klingons, Vulcans and artificial life forms in the 2106 census? What about their alien hybrid children?

Thank goodness we live in simpler times.

tags: Canada, Vancouver, fill out, census, form, 2006, 2001, population, history, people, ethnicity, divorce, statistics, NSA, government, spy, spying