Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We do not do any projections for the rates of construction of housing. What the census can provide is regular updates on the numbers of housing, the types of housing, and the level of overcrowding, as well as the conditions of housing. This can be updated on a regular basis through the Census of Population.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The projections of the aboriginal populations were done specifically for each of the three main groups. They were prepared using information from the 1996 and 2001 censuses—so a lot of the growth and a lot of the assumptions were based on that period--as well as using information that we do have available on fertility, migration, and mortality available from the census and from the information on registered Indians.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you and good morning, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you for this invitation to appear before the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. I'm pleased to present to you an overview of data that's available from Statistics Canada on aboriginal housing.

Status of Women committee  Only to say that we do work with national aboriginal organizations in order to really develop and design a survey for reserves, for example, that looks at the very specific issues that are really important for understanding the situation of aboriginals, and aboriginal women in particular, on reserves.

Status of Women committee  The one area where we do move forward with projections is in the area of demographics. So we do project the populations of various areas in Canada as well as for certain subpopulations, for example, such as visible minorities or aboriginal groups. So in the area of demographics, yes, we do project forward based on the assumptions on the various characteristics of growth, whether it be migration, fertility, or mortality.

Status of Women committee  On that point, I can say that we do have regular ongoing exchanges with policy researchers and policy-makers at the various levels--the federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal levels--and we share a lot of information from various sources that we have. Women in Canada is one of our key sources for gender statistics, but we do have ongoing dialogue with policy-makers who either take the data as is from a publication like Women in Canada or they ask for further statistics.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much. It's a pleasure for us to be here with you this morning. As you said, Madam Chair, I'm the director general responsible for social and demographic statistics at Statistics Canada. This includes a number of social surveys, such as the General Social Survey, from which we'll be drawing a lot of information this morning; post-censal surveys, such as the activity limitation survey; as well as the census.