Canadian Census Goes Back to 1665

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 5618, 6 April 1931, Page 3

Canadian Census Goes Back to 1665

OTTAWA. This is Canada’s census year and within a few months 10,000 enumerators will be knocking on every door from Charlottetown to Victoria, from the border to the circle. A. J. Pelletier, assistant chief ot demography of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, claims that “Canada is undoubtedly the first country in modern times to take a complete census. By “complete census’’ Hr. Pelletier explained that he meant nominal census and not simply copies of parochial and other registers. The claim having been challenged by an American statistician, K. H. Coates, chief statistician of Canada, has asked for a thorough investigation of old documents, letters and records, and results will presently be known. It has been found t-liKt in 1C65, by order of the Frcncn king, a count was taken of the people then living in Houvello France, referred to in official documents as recording “the exact number of all inhabitants of all ages and sex,’’ together with the “exact statement as to the kind and number of the animals and number of arpents of land,” obtained by “visiting every house from door to door. The population was shown to consist of 3215 persons. Nearly a century later, about the date of the fall °* Quebec, the population of Canada had increased to 70,000, exclusive of the Maritime*, where there were about 20,000 more. By the beginning of the nineteenth century. _ due to gradual settlement and the influx of Lmtcd Empire Loyalists following the American war" of independence, the population had risen to 225,000; by 1850'it had jumped to 2,384,9.10, and by 18*1> the first census after Confederation, it had increased to 3,089,257. With the twentieth century came remarkable expansion, raising the population by 19H to over 7,000,000. At the last- census 1021, the Dominion had 8,788,483 persons, and it is confidently expected that the present census will show that the country has gone over the 10.C00,000 mark. ' Since the first crude census of —claimed by Canada as the first, in Chirtsendom—the method of counting has developed into the great and complicated organisation known as the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, wmch is capable of supplying exact data on almost everp phase of Canadian life and development.