2006 Community Profiles

Question

I have been looking at the 2006 Community Profiles and I am sort of upset and disappointed by them. I suppose I should have realized that the wave of amalgamation/ "dissolving" of communities would have significant impact on the easy of use of Census data but it is only recently I have realized the implications.

I used to introduce Census data using the Community Profiles and would ask a class member to give me a name of a small town they were from. Invariably in the 1996 and 2001 Community Profiles I would get a nice display of info which always seemed to impress the students.

Don't try the same thing for 2006 - you will look very unimpressive!!

Because of amalgamation/dissolution (sic?) many "smaller" communities have completely disappeared from Community Profiles - two that I have come across, and there are hundreds, are Simcoe, a town of 15,000 and Lindsay, a town of about the same.

Simcoe has become "Norfolk" which is the "City" and the CA name and is included in an area with about 60,000 people. Similarly Lindsay is now Kawartha Lakes which is a "City", a CA and a CD (!) of about 75,000 people which covers about 15 preexisting communities.

So the answer is to use Urban Areas to get the small town / community info for 2006.

The point of all this background is to ask whether the Census people would consider adding Urban Area data to the 2006 Community Profiles because without it many communities appear not to exist. The Community Profiles have always been a great, quick source of community info and I am sorry to see that has disappeared for many smaller places

Answer

The community profile was created to answer the questions from the general population concerning characteristics of the community they live in. We called it community profile mainly because there were no other names that were suitable (municipalities, township, and many other names that can be significant only in specific areas). The other reason was that the general public and students don't necessarily specify the name of the legal entity they live in. For example, I live in Orleans which at one point (few years back) was a village then split and part was amalgamated in a city called Gloucester and another part was amalgamated in another city called Cumberland. Lately, all of these were amalgamated as the City of Ottawa. For people that are still writing Orleans as their address would be lead to City of Ottawa for information on the Community Profile. If this was not done, it could be very frustrating for the general public not to be able to find information on the community they live in. Furthermore, there were so many community dissolved in 2001 that it was agreed for one census cycle that a profile would be available for dissolved entities such as Simcoe. As you are probably aware, when you pull Simcoe's profile in 2001, it would provide data but also indicate that this entity was dissolved and now part of Norfolk City. This was done for once census to give municipalities a chance to have information before and after amalgamation in order to help them in the transition to these new entities.

I understand very well your questions but I will add that from the user testing on the community profile, we were confirmed repeatedly to keep it very simple in terms of access and the level of geography for which information is available such as the legal entity you live in. It has been with the Summary tables, the most popular part of the Statistics Canada's site and I would be very reluctant to complicate the geography in fear of losing the general public.

Now, understanding that urban areas are not a legal entity and unless you fully understand the concept, this could be very misleading as part of the community profile. That being said, the other way is to use the Census Tract Profile which boundaries have remain relatively stable and still follow previous entities boundaries.

There is also this product: Catalogue No.: 95F0495XCB2001009 which is the Profile for Urban Areas, 2001 Census and which provide characteristics for urban areas in Canada, listed alphabetically by provinces which quite easy to use. I know it's not the Community Profile but being shown separately, it does not confuse users from the general public thinking that Simcoe Urban Area is the boundary of a city.