Better data on Calgarians results in better decisions on where to allocate city resources, says a city councillor who’s advocated for the return of a municipal census.

At the Oct. 2 Executive Committee meeting, Calgary city councillors will discuss three potential options for the return of a biennial municipal census beginning in 2027. The census was scrubbed as a part of cost-cutting measures during the 2020 mid-cycle budget adjustment.

In May this year, as a part of the discussion on Calgary’s Housing Strategy, Calgary city councillors directed administration to come back with options on reinstating the municipal census.

The admin plan would see the census return by 2027, either through the deployment of either an in-house developed and administered census option, an in-house developed census using an outside software system, or a third – and preferred – option, a contractor-supported census.

The latter is preferred primarily due to the need to be ready to deliver the census by 2027, according to a city report.

“It leverages expertise from firms that have conducted other municipal censuses in Alberta. A reduced administrative team covers most of the contractor cost,” the city report read.

City administration said that this option allows them to take increasing ownership of the census process and focuses on managing and distributing the resulting data.

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner said that she’s been advocating for the return of the census since she was elected in 2021, and it just needed the right trigger to bring it back.

While the federal government does a national census every five years, much of the data doesn’t filter down to the municipalities until 18 to 24 months later, Penner said.

“It means that we are basing decision-making and resourcing on almost two-year-old data, and so it’s not allowing us to be as responsive to Calgarians and their needs and where we put investments,” she said.

An example she used was library funding, much of which comes through the province on a per capita basis. The Government of Alberta uses the 2019 population of Calgary to determine funding, Penner said.

“Almost five years later, we’ve had over 100,000 new Calgarians come and who are needing increased services and free services through the library, and we don’t have that funding.”

Data lag doesn’t reflect current challenges: Vibrant Calgary

Meaghon Reid, executive director of Vibrant Communities Calgary (VCC), said the lag time in getting federal census data means when they do get the information, it’s already out of date.

“That lag, especially over the past five years, has meant that Stats Can data really isn’t reflecting the reality of our current challenges, back to Calgarians or back to organizations like ours,” she said.  

“If we think about how much inflation has changed, immigration has changed, the housing market has changed, it’s simply out of date by the time we get it. So, one of our biggest challenges is that we find that lag time and data really affects the integrity of our research.”

That leaves them in the situation of conducting their own community-based research, which for a smaller organization, is rather costly, Reid said.

More frequent and accurate data on Calgary’s immigration composition, language composition and even household income data allows VCC to develop interventions that better meet the needs of thousands of Calgarians.

“It’s really hard in an environment that’s changing this quickly to understand what interventions are making the biggest differences,” Reid said.

City of Calgary administration wrote in their report that along with allowing them to optimize municipal services, the regularly updated data also allows school boards to better plan for enrolment and dispersion of education resources.

The City estimates that the total funding needed for the census between 2025 and 2030 is between $10 million and $13 million, with a $ 4 million to $5 million biennial cost. Some of the initial costs would be aided by grant funding, and further provincial grant funding is also available for cities with substantial population growth.  If the recommendations are approved, the City would have to include the funding in 2027 to 2030 service plans and budgets.

Coun. Penner said it means the money they do have for city services is better spent.

“I agree, we could be putting an additional $4 million a year into services,” she said.

“Appropriately placing those $4 million is going to serve Calgarians better than haphazardly making decisions or only anecdotally making decisions. Data-based decision-making leads to better outcomes and that’s what we’re striving for.”