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“If you look around the world, particularly in Europe, you’ll see many countries have moved away from going out with a survey the way we do,” Smith told the Citizen.

“They’ve said there are data files available that we can use to effectively count the population: we don’t need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and bother every household in the country to count the population.”

Other national statistical agencies, including those in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, are now exploring whether to follow suit.

“Essentially, that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said. “We’re asking, ‘Could we get there? Could we actually, without bothering Canadians, do as well? Be able to obtain the same level of accuracy or better than the current survey-based census?'”

Plans for a virtual census remain at the discussion stage. Statistics Canada will need the help of other federal departments, provinces and territories to make such a model work, but there are significant administrative and privacy hurdles to overcome.

“I would say, given all that would likely have to change, we’re probably two censuses away before we could do it – if we could find the solutions to be able to implement it,” said Smith.

The federal Statistics Act requires a census of population every five years, but it is silent on how that count is to be conducted.

The potential savings are enormous.

Holland uses a virtual census that links a series of national and municipal databases to develop a detailed picture of its 16.7 million people. Dutch statisticians cross-reference the country’s population register — everyone in Holland must obtain a citizen number to open a bank account or obtain health services — with databases that deal with housing, pensions, social services, employment and taxes. Statisticians combine that data with information from sample surveys to produce its virtual, or register-based, census.