A politically divisive debate continues to rage over U.S. President Donald Trump's push to add a citizenship or nationality question to the U.S. census. That same question has been part of Canada's census form for over a century without a ripple.
Trump has been waging a fierce fight to add the controversial query to the 2020 census, and said Friday he's now considering an executive order to get it done after a Supreme Court ruling blocked his efforts.
Canada's own long form census asks: "Of what country is this person a citizen?" Respondents have a choice of three possible answers: "Canada, by birth," "Canada, by naturalization" or "Other country - specify."
"This information is used to estimate the number of potential voters and to plan citizenship classes and programs. It also provides information about the population with multiple citizenships and the number of immigrants in Canada who hold Canadian citizenship."
Theelen said Statistics Canada's data quality assessment indicators have not flagged any issues specifically related to the citizenship question. The Library of Parliament could not find any significant debate, controversy or court case related to the inclusion of a citizenship question on the Canadian census form.
In the U.S., the Republican administration's push has triggered a partisan firestorm because of the enormous political stakes.
The Census Bureau's own experts have said the question would discourage immigrants from participating in the census, which would result in a less-accurate census. That, say critics, would redistribute money and political power away from Democrat-led urban districts — where immigrants tend to cluster — and toward whiter, rural areas where Republicans do well.
"In Canada, we have an impartial electoral commission that redistributes the electoral boundaries according to the law based on objective criteria," he said. "It's not an issue here at all, because we don't have that kind of gerrymandering that they have in the U.S."
Waldman said it's possible a census result showing a high percentage of undocumented people in a specific region of the U.S. could lead to stepped-up Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) patrols there.
