Public Accounts committee  To be clear, the data for those areas is included in the national picture and in the provincial picture. It's included in the census division picture. It's quite possible by combining several areas to generate an area for which we can provide data. That's been done. The other consideration is that this data is in fact available.

Public Accounts committee  Essentially the conclusion was that, of the various claims that had been made about all the groups that would be under-represented, we found no real evidence that had occurred. We did find a slight discrepancy with regard to certain income data for low-income families. We identified that in information we published at the time the data was released.

Public Accounts committee  There are multiple roads into Statistics Canada. We put a lot of emphasis on self-service through our website. Most of our information is available or downloadable from our website if people want service directly. We also have a telephone inquiry service where people can call and where we will establish what their needs are and take appropriate action based on the identified needs.

Public Accounts committee  There's absolutely no doubt that I would have preferred to have a 94% response rate or any response rate higher than 69%, but the fact that the response rate was 69% is not in itself a condemnation of the data. Response rates really have two impacts when you start talking about data.

Public Accounts committee  While we view Statistics Canada as a national statistical office and, therefore, try to meet the needs of the entire nation, all Canadians, the reality is that with the budget available our focus is primarily on government and primarily on the two most senior levels of government.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, committee members. I have with me at the table today Stéphane Dufour, the assistant chief statistician for corporate services at Statistics Canada. As chief statistician of Canada, it is my pleasure to speak to you about the Auditor General's report in which he assessed how well Statistics Canada meets the key statistical information needs of Canadians and their institutions.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely. We'll make sure this goes up on it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, the numbers that are coming out on February 8 are the unadjusted population counts, and yes, we consider that they would be less accurate than the estimates that are currently available.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First, I will just clarify one thing. The census remains mandatory. There were 10 questions that people were required by law...and it's those questions that are used to establish the population. So the census itself was mandatory. The 2011 census, based on information that we have up to now, is looking very good.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The 2011 census of population comprised 10 questions that formed the basis of the numbers that will be released on February 8. It was mandatory, and as far as we know today it was very successful and had a higher response rate than the previous census.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's impossible because in fact it would be another census, to be able to go to that level of detail.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The adjustment to undercoverage can only be made at the provincial and territorial level. We provide all and any support that is requested from us by the commission, but normally that is the detailed census counts of very small geographic areas, including down to the block level, in order for them to delimit the electoral boundaries.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think the reason we use the census numbers is simply that we need to be able to go down to very small levels of geography. That's the primary driver, or has been historically, for using census numbers. Because we count everybody, in principle--that's the objective--we can say that down one side of one street in downtown Halifax, this is what the population count was there.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Provincially, you would be using something, in our view, that would be less than the most accurate representation of the population of the provinces and territories, if you were to use the unadjusted counts.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My way of putting it is that it would advantage provinces where we have a more significant undercoverage problem, by increasing their population; therefore, using the formula that we were just discussing would lead to greater seat numbers. We missed more people in those provinces, and it's compensating for that fact.