Thursday, October 1, 2015

Meaning of "not applicable" in 2006 census profile data

Question

A student in an urban studies course pointed out to me that most of the data (everything from the long form, it seems) for census tract 5350033.00 was missing in the profile for 2006; the missing data were replaced by an 'N'. 

It took a bit of digging to discover that 'N' stood for 'not applicable'. Nowhere does it explain what this might mean, either in a general or specific sense. The CT in question had a population of 5528, so it wasn't a suppression due to low population. 

Are non-response rates for individual CTs available anywhere for 2006? Would there have been any other reason to suppress the long-form data?

Answer

It seems as though that one was suppressed:
http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/ref/notes/sup_CT2B-SR2B-eng.cfm