Manor mayor says community didn’t receive census letters

May 25, 2026, 10:22 am
Donnie Matichuk

Census Letters were sent out earlier this month, Manor mayor says community didn't receive census letters.

The Village of Manor, 13 kilometres east of Carlyle on Higway 13, hasn’t recieved any letters informing residents to fill out their census.

“To my knowledge, we did not get any notices about the census that had the 16-digit code on it. In some of the areas around us, they were delivered door to door. Nobody had any card delivered to their door in Manor,” said Lucille Dunn, Mayor of Manor.

The census is usually done by one of three ways. These are by mail, by a census taker going door-to-door, or online. Normally the census forms are delivered by mail in urban areas and hand-delivered in rural areas. There were many areas missed during the last census, and some reports of households, and in the case of Manor, an entire community being missed this time around.

“I honestly have no idea how this could have happened. I’m assuming that perhaps they did not have a census taker assigned to this area, or that our taker made an error,” said Dunn.

This error doesn’t seem to be just in the community of Manor either. Multiple other communities reported that they did not receive cencus notices, including nearby Arcola. Dunn said that other communities have heard from someone about getting the letters, but Manor isn’t one of them.

“I phoned the World-Spectator to see if any other towns or villages had this problem, and then I also called our MP and left a message with their office. Apparently there are other areas, according to his office, that will be getting a door to door person. I haven’t been notified of anything like that for Manor.”

The Government of Saskatchewan says on their website that in 2026-27, it will distribute over $392 million to municipalities accross the province. This is a part of the Municipal Revenue Sharing program. How much each municipality gets is based on population derived from the census data. This is why it is so important for places like Manor to be properly represented and counted by the census.

“Getting people notified and filling out their census is really important for small communities. We get our funding from the province based on population, and that gets taken from census data. It’s a huge hit to us if we don’t get that,” Dunn said.

She brought up the issues that going online-only for the census could have in smaller towns and villages.

“It’s very strange. I have a group that I have coffee with in the morning, and between us we know everyone in the whole town. We’ve asked around, and nobody’s got anything from Statistics Canada.

“A few of us have gone on to the census website and filled them out that way. However, I know for a fact that there’s going to be a number of seniors that don’t do anything on a computer. If online is the only way we have to do it, they won’t be filing. There are others that it’s always difficult to get them to do a census because they think it’s an invasion of privacy. It’s just not a good thing.”

Finding out who needs to be contacted to get these errors fixed has also been a struggle in the past few days.

“I understand that in Carlyle, which is 13 kilometers away, that it was hit and miss on who got cards and who didn’t. Some people got them delivered to the door, but the house beside them never got them for whatever reason. I also heard that Arcola was like us, and nobody was delivering anything to the door. The post office in Arcola was attempting to communicate with Canada Post to ask about the notices. I don’t think Canada Post has anything to do with it, but I also don’t know who we would have to get in touch with.”

Even when facing a new problem, Dunn says that they are still finding solutions and workarounds to help the village.

“I went to our administrator and said that I was very concerned about the fact that we never got any census notices. He hadn’t filed his yet, and so we did his together and took detailed notes on exactly how to do it. We made up a post on Facebook and are trying to spread the word that way. I understand from Steven Bonk’s office that there is a toll free 1-800 number you can also call and they can help you get information.”

People can call 1-833-852-2026 if they have not received a census form.

This isn’t the first time southeastern Saskatchwean communities have had issues with the census, but Dunn noted that she’s never heard of something of this nature happening.

“I believe this is a new problem for us. I know there were errors last census with communities in the Moosomin area. I don’t know if there’s ever been anything to the extent to this, where entire communities aren’t getting notified of the census.

“I know that the numbers sometimes get skewed in a lot of ways. People saying that they don’t consider where they live to be their home, or other things of that nature. This isn’t about that, this is a matter of our community wanting to fill out the census, but not getting the opportunity.”
Dunn said that trying to make the census less manual for the governmet could be the root of the problem.

“I know they want to switch everything to online. They like to push that it’s so much easier online. But seriously, it worked a lot better when it was all done door to door. Yes, the takers had to go back numerous times to get people, but it worked. I do think it worked better when it was done more manually. If it worked and could still be the better option for some communities, they should have that option.”

Dunn says that she hopes the issue will be resolved soon, and that there will be changes to help prevent this in the future.