The response rate to the long form census was already on a declining trend while it was compulsory. It was 98.3% in 2001, 97.5% in 2006, so might have been 96.7% in 2011 even if it had remained compulsory. This is not that much superior to the 93% non-response rate achieved by the American Community Survey, the US equivalent to our long form census in the year it was voluntary. The actual response rate for the NHS was 69%, much lower. Not all of the 24 percentage points difference between this response rate and that of the 2003 US ACS can be attributed to the hysterical ravings of Canada’s Chicken Little journos, although some of it must be. A larger part is probably due to inferior efforts at eliminating non-response by StatCan as opposed to its American counterpart or to a much inferior willingness of Canadians to respond to such a survey than Americans, or both.