There could be a slight hiccup in the counting of souls within Calgary, largely due to the inability to find a contractor who can carry out the census work.
Members of Calgary’s Executive Committee will consider a potential switch to a city-led census in 2028, instead of a contractor-led census in 2027. The latter option was initially approved back in 2024.
According to the city admin report, no full-service contractor could be found during their Request for Information.
“However, after completing an RFI, Administration did not find any contractors that offer a complete delivery model, and experience for contractors working in large cities was limited,” their report read.
Calgary’s civic census was one of the casualties of the city’s Solutions for Achieving Value and Excellence (SAVE) program back in 2020. That was a program meant to find city savings when Calgarians were looking for a property tax break. At that time, it was proposed to save the City of Calgary $900,000 annually. The city’s last head count happened in 2019.
