Early Censuses in Canada

Census Canadian Censuses Early Censuses

The first census in what is now Canada was conducted in 1665 and 1666 by French official Jean Baptiste Talon, who was sent by King Louis XIV to administer the colony of New France. Talon organized a door-to-door enumeration of the colony’s inhabitants, many of whom had settled in the towns of Montréal, Trois-Rivières, Cap-de-la-Madeleine, and Québec. The census counted 3,215 people and recorded each person’s name, age, sex, place of residence, marital status, and occupation. In 1667 Talon gathered information on livestock owned and land under cultivation. Talon’s census is sometimes considered the first modern census because it provided such complete information. A total of 36 censuses were conducted during the French regime, ending with the census of 1739. These censuses added questions on buildings and dwellings, agricultural output, and industrial output. Further censuses were conducted after the onset of British rule in 1763, including annual censuses of Upper Canada and Lower Canada from 1824 to 1842.

Regular decennial censuses began in Canada in 1851, when the province of Canada was still controlled by the British Empire. The British North America Act of 1867 transformed Canada into a federation known as the Dominion of Canada. The act required that the census provide population counts so that representation in the House of Commons could be apportioned among the four provinces of Ontario, Québec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. The counts would also serve for periodic readjustment of the boundaries of electoral districts.

The first census of the Dominion, taken in 1871, counted 3.7 million people. The census questionnaire was made available in English and French, a tradition continued in every census that followed. The 1871 census was a very elaborate affair, collecting information not only on population but also on agriculture, livestock, animal products, industrial establishments, forest products, shipping and fisheries, mining, and public institutions. Canada was primarily an agricultural nation at the time, and the census was conducted by the Department of Agriculture.

In 1905 the census bureau was made a permanent government agency in the Agriculture Department. In 1918 the government created a Dominion Bureau of Statistics, which had responsibility for taking the census and collecting other statistical information about Canada. The bureau was renamed Statistics Canada in 1971. (1)

Census

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• Census Information
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• Census Planning
• Census Information Collection
• Census Processing and Analysis of Data
• Census Publication of Results
• Census in the U.S.
• U.S. Censuses Origins
• U.S. Early Censuses
• United States: Censuses Breakthroughs in Automation
• Modern Censuses in the United States
• Census in Canada
• Early Censuses in Canada
• Modern Censuses in Canada

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Notes and References

1. Encarta Online Encyclopedia

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This entry was last updated: March 23, 2014