We will necessarily all be glad when we receive our initial Census 2011 tables. Of course, we will face interesting challenges in their use. The chief analytical question addressed by much analysis is "What has changed". We will be challenged in our analysis to suggest whether changes are really significant. We can no longer be confident in a major part of our data world. The evaluation of that confidence will necessitate substantial new analytical resources.
We will never likely know what the true incremental costs of the methodological changes in the Census will be. Statistics Canada must necessarily allocate additional resources to the survey approach and to the quality assessment of the resources. These resources are essentially wasted in the sense that they would not be required if not necessitated by the changes mandated by the Government's dogma.
There are explicit costs that journalists might dig for if interested. However, this is water under the bridge.
There will be bigger implicit costs because of the higher cost of future analysis. We will no longer be able to depend on methodological comparability. All studies will have be evaluated with much more care or at least should be.
There will be bigger explicit costs with commercial surveys because they will not be as good but since there is no alternative we are left with valuing a loss in quality. We will not have as good data because of this change. That is a straight statement of fact. The valuation of that quality loss will be an interesting piece of research.
One can only be sad because there would surely have been many better uses for the resources involved in this change.