The Canadian residents will be asked about their sexual orientation in the national census next year, according to CBC News.
Although Statistics Canada has asked about sexual orientation in previous surveys, next year it will mark the first time the question will appear in the long format census questionnaire that will be 25 percent of Canadian residents in May 2026.
The questions will not be included in the census shortly that comes to 75 percent of Canadian residents.
The census long will also have questions about the lack of housing and health problems for the first time.
The questions for the census, which takes place every five years, were approved by the cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Carney on June 13. Most of them touch the usual themes of the census, such as the ethnic history of respondents and their families, education, housing, employment, citizenship and spoken languages.
While the law requires Canadians to complete the questionnaires, their answers remain confidential. They are used to produce statistics on the population of Canada and, often, help inform where services are needed throughout the country.
The question will provide a more complete image of where people of different sexual orientations live throughout the country and their socioeconomic history.
The questions that should be asked in the census next year include the sex of a respondent at birth, with the option of selecting men or women. Respondents are also asked to provide their gender, the option to choose the man (or boy), woman (or girl) or write in their own response.
The census questionnaire also provides a gender definition to guide respondents.
“Gender refers to the personal and social identity of an individual as a man (or boy), a woman (or a girl) or a person who is not exclusively a man (or a boy) or a woman (or a girl), for example, non -binary, agent, gender fluid, rare or two spirit.”
Gap in the identified data
Question 36, which should only be asked for those over 15, asks directly about sexual orientation, explaining that information is being collected “to inform programs that promote equal opportunities so that all those who live in Canada share their social, cultural and economic life.”
Respondents can choose between “heterosexual (that is, straight), lesbian or gay, bisexual or pansexual” or write in their own response.
Sébastien Larochelle-Côté, General Director of Socio-Economic Statistics and Integration of Social Data for Statistics Canada, says that the issue of sexual orientation was identified as a data gap on the population of Canada in consultations prior to the census questionnaire.
“That is the main reason why we include sexual orientation in the population census,” Larochelle-Côté said.
He said that this will also allow census data to be combined with information on transgender and non -binary people in Canada that the agency has been collecting through separate surveys.
“We can obtain information about the 2SLGBTQ+ population as a whole. And in our opinion, it will provide very, very insightful information.”
Larochelle-Côté said the answers will also help inform the decision making of the government.
“We know that sexual orientation has been identified as a reason for discrimination by the Human Rights Law of Canada,” he said. “We also know that there is a federal working group that recommended to the population 2SLGBTQ+ as a capital group … We wanted to move with the times.”
Larochelle-Côté said that other countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand also ask about sexual orientation in their censuses, but said that it has not yet been asked in the United States, which carries out a census every 10 years.
Health questions, homeless people added
Information about the lack of housing in Canada is another information gap that Statistics Canada expects to fill. It also occurs when the federal government has promised to increase housing construction throughout the country.
Larochelle-Côté said that Statistics Canada will not be able to communicate with those who currently do not have a home on May 12, 2026, because the questionnaire is sent to collective houses and homes. But it will provide more information about people who have been homeless.
The first question will ask if a respondent “remained in a shelter, on the street or in the parks, in an impromptu shelter, in a vehicle or in an abandoned building” during the previous 12 months. The second will ask if a respondent has temporarily lived with friends, family or others during the previous 12 months because he had no other place to live.
Larochelle-Côté said that the answers to these questions will shed light on where people experience the lack of housing and can be referenced with the socioeconomic characteristics of a respondent of the answers to other questions of the census.
“We can better understand who is the greatest risk of experiencing the lack of housing,” he said.
Next year’s census will also include new questions about the health of respondents, even if the respondent has difficulty seeing, listening, walking using stairs or using their hands or fingers. He will ask respondents if they have difficulty learning, remembering or concentrating, if they have emotional, psychological or mental health conditions, as well as if they have other health problems or long -term conditions that have lasted or are expected to last six months or more.
The census will include a general question about how the respondent qualifies your health.
This will help “better predict the demand for medical care services throughout the country, to the lowest possible geography level,” said Larochelle-Côté.
While similar questions have been asked in other surveys, Larochelle-Côté said that this will be the first time they are asked in the Canadian census.
The details of the census next year will be made public on July 4.
