05-02-2019, 08:37 AM
Which statistic do you think has an undercount? Population statistics are actually really complicated and it's not at all straightforward what a population is for a given area at a particular time. When you delve into the methodologies of a particular census, it becomes clear where some of the differences come from. Typically the only comparable data is from the same census year to year. So, you can compare the Statistics Canada census data from 2011 to 2016. You can compare the Statistics Canada population and housing estimates from year to year. You can compare Ministry of Finance population estimates and projections from year to year. You can compare municipal census data from year to year. But you can't really compare across data sets, because the methodologies vary enough to produce differences, sometimes dramatic ones. The major factor in our region that influences differences in population is student populations and how the individual methods account for them.