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Statistics Canada is quietly waiting for its official marching orders from a new Liberal government to quickly reinstate the mandatory long-form census and have it ready for 2016.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have promised to restore the mandatory long-form census that the Conservative government eliminated in 2010 and replaced with a voluntary National Household Survey that critics say has significant holes in its data.

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The incoming government has also promised to make Statistics Canada “fully independent,” believing Stephen Harper’s Conservatives meddled with the data collection agency for its own political purposes.

Trudeau’s new Liberal government will be sworn in Nov. 4 and is expected to move almost immediately to restore the census to allow Statistics Canada enough time to have it ready for its rollout in May 2016.

“We will immediately restore the mandatory long-form census, to give communities the information they need to best serve Canadians,” says the Liberal platform.