Too many Canadian businesses and institutions overlook the census as a source of information, a Vancouver software developer says.

Wilson Baker says the 1991 Census provides the only comprehensive and up-to-date picture of Canadians from coast to coast.

‘Statistics Canada is the best source of demographics in Canada,’ says Baker, who is president of Tetrad Computer Applications, which developed PCensus-Canada.

The software product takes Statistics Canada’s Census of Population data and compresses it so a personal computer can store and analyze it.

PCensus-Canada databases contain more than 400 variables for every enumeration area, the smallest geographic unit for which census data are available.

The software that retrieves the demographic data is $350, and Census 2A data for all of Canada cost $2,500.

Data for small provinces such as Nova Scotia cost $300, and $600 for large provinces such as Ontario or Quebec. DC