In 2011 the mandatory long-form census was discontinued and replaced with a voluntary survey. The National Household Survey (NHS) is where some of the information previously gathered in the census may now be found.
Although all topics from the Census and NHS are grouped together in the Census 2011 page, the data was collected in different ways:
- Census: population, gender, age, dwellings, families, marital status and language
- NHS: income, education, labour, housing, aboriginal peoples, immigration, mobility and migration
The 2011 Census comprised 10 questions and was sent to every household in Canada. The national response rate was 97.1 percent.
The NHS was sent to approximately 4.5 million households in Canada. The national response rate was 77.2 percent.
