The City of Burnaby wants the federal government to bring back the long-form census in 2016.
City council passed a motion at Monday night's meeting to send a resolution on the issue to the Lower Mainland Local Government Association and the Union of B.C. Municipalities.
The voluntary household survey, which replaced the mandatory long-form census in 2011, does not provide communities with enough information for municipal planning, according to a staff report.
"Our planning and, I think, planning staff right across the country are extremely worried that it has seriously affected the ability of cities to plan, given that so much information now is reduced," Mayor Derek Corrigan said at Monday night's meeting. "It's an issue that I think all of us are concerned about and one that has been adopted in the past by other municipalities."
Burnaby council passed another motion on the issue in 2010, asking the federal minister of industry to reverse the decision.
In 2006, the last year the long-form census was sent out to one in five Canadian households, there was a 94 per cent completion rate, according to the staff report. In 2011, though the voluntary form was sent to one in three households, there was only a 68 per cent completion rate.
Some community responses dipped to 25 per cent or lower, according to Statistics Canada.
The low response in some areas of Burnaby has made analysis unreliable, making planning difficult for city staff, according to the report.
The resolution is being sent to the Lower Mainland Local Government Association's annual general meeting. Resolutions adopted at the meeting are then forwarded on to the UBCM convention.
The resolution reads: "Whereas the elimination of the mandatory long form census has negatively affected the quality of statistical data available; and whereas local governments are particularly affected by this change given that the data is increasingly unreliable at the local and neighbourhood level; therefore be it resolved that the Union of B.C. Municipalities call on the federal government, through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, to reinstate the mandatory long-form census for the 2016 national census."
