Canadian Census Data

The census is done every five years. The most current census data now available is for 2016.

There are two basic ways to search for data: by geography or by topic. Topic tabulations are good for detailed breakdowns of things like income by education. Geographic tabulations will give you the breakdown of income OR education for a specific area, but won't break down income by education by geography.

Community Profiles are a quick way to see a summary of data available for a named area like a city or town.
GeoSearch is a tool that lets you get to very small levels of geography such as neighbourhoods.
Topic-based Tabulations will take you to lists of "key tables" for a topic. Sometimes you may recognize the table you need on the list right away. If you are having trouble finding the data you need, the variable index will show you all tables that cover a particular topic, so at worst you just have to go through them until you find the data you need. The census dictionary contains definitions for all the data.

Canadian Census Analyser is a service provided by the University of Toronto that allows bulk download of multiple census geographic units at once. Public Use Microdata files, where available, can be downloaded from ODESI.

Census of Canada 2016
Census Topic-based Tabulations
Community Profiles
Geosearch 2016
Canadian Census Analyzer 2016 

Note that for 2011 the census consisted soley of the Short Form, which has far fewer variables than were available in previous censuses. These additional variables were covered in the National Household Survey.

Census of Canada 2011 Census dictionary Community Profiles Geosearch 2011 Canadian Census Analyzer 2011

National Household Survey 2011: browse by topic or geography Canadian Census Analyzer NHS  NHS Microdata is available from ODESI. No 2011 Census microdata will be produced.

Census of Canada 2006
Topic-based tabulations
Variable index
Census dictionary
Community Profiles
Geosearch 2006

Census of Canada 2001
Topic-based tabulations
Variable index
Census dictionary
Community Profiles
Geosearch 2001

Census of Canada 1996
Topic-based tabulations

Older Census tables are available in print. The books are shelved in the Government Documents section, on the second floor of the main building, Leddy Library. Online, the Internet Archive Statistics Canada collection has digitized volumes of a number of Canadian Censuses. Canadian Census Analyser (via the University of Toronto) provides access to census profile data at varying levels of geography back to 1961.

Census microdata public use files are available on  ODESI from 1971 to 2006 (see note above for 2011) as well as for the census years 1871 through 1911.