SENSE US - THE LONG FORM

Thank you for participating in the 2026 Census (and multiple choice citizenship test). The information you provide is not used to produce statistics. As such, nothing here can help communities, businesses, and governments plan services, develop programs, and make informed decisions about employment, schools, public transportation, hospitals or any other damn thing.

Your answers are inherently confidential. And you can be sure Peregrine Pulp makes no use of existing sources of information, such as immigration, income tax and benefits data, to reduce the response burden placed on households.

The information you most certainly do not provide here cannot be used by anyone for other statistical or research purposes. They cannot be combined with other survey or administrative data sources, as such.

Thank you,

PEREGREINE PULP - Nothing like Statistics Canada

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INSTRUCTIONS: Please select the option that best fits your experience, preference, or understanding. Enjoy.

WAITS AND MEASURES

How do you measure a person's height?

1. Centimetres and meters.

2. Inches and feet.

3. Apples, just as I was taught by Hello Kitty and the Smurfs.

4. You're either tall or short (which is gauged by whether you are taller or shorter than me).

When communicating distance, you:

1. Go with what it says on the speedometer.

2. Slide between miles and kilometres, just as you do feet and metres, depending on the situation.

What shoe sizing method do you prefer?

1. US/Canada: Based on the barbaric barleycorn, with separate scales for the sexes.

2. UK/Australia: Also the barleycorn unit but typically one full size lower than US Men's sizes.

3. Europe: Uses Parisian points, commonly featuring whole sizes.

4. Japan (obviously the only non-barbaric method): Based on the length of the foot in centimeters.

How do you prefer to give and receive directions?

1. "Left at the next intersection, then a right at the light, you'll see a large red billboard..."

2. Cardinal directions. "West to the top of the hill and then south until you see the ocean."

3. By street names.

4. "Just down the road past the old [insert landmark that hasn't existed in two generations]."

Milk should only come in:

1. Plastic bags.

2. Latex bags.

3. Plastic jugs.

4. Glass bottles.

5. Polyethylene-coated paper cartons.

6. Powdered or condensed form and only in aluminum cans.

7. None of the above. Why are we consuming the milk of other species?

8. We should only be drinking monotreme milk and straight from the source.

You want recipes to have their baking temperatures in:

1. Celsius.

2. Fahrenheit.

3. Kelvin.

4. "Screamin' hot", "good'n'hot", "mid", "warm", "low as possible".

The air temperature at home, work, and on public transit should be:

1. No higher than 20°C (68°F, 293°K).

2. A comfortable 24°C (75°F, 297°K) or above.

It's the dead of winter. You:

1. Try not to leave the house; but if you have to you do so wearing as many layers as your can stand along with gloves, a scarf and/or a face covering, ear coverings of some sort, and a warm hat.

2. Live in southwest BC so you're dressed like its spring in the rest of the country.

3. Wear the same cargo shorts or kilt you were wearing in the summer.

4. Rarely experience the out-of-doors as go from your house to work and back in your SUV.

The snow is two inches deep:

1. You're concerned your kids' school may be closed for the next two days, the trees in your yard will lose limbs, and your roof may cave in.

2. The wind will blow it away so there is no need to get out your broom and sweep.

3. You tend to wait for the first four feet before cracking out your diesel snow blower.

If the chance of rain is above 35%:

1. You wear a raincoat or bring an umbrella.

2. ...actually, you've never looked at the weather forecast.

3. Something else.

You measure time by:

1. The clock.

2. The sun and birds.

3. None of the above.

If you were to take the bus, you would:

1. Know that the schedule and any information on the transit app are perfectly irrelevant and the bus will, as it always does everywhere on the planet and for all time, arrive exactly when it arrives and not a moment before.

2. Check the schedule in advance, regularly monitor the GPS positioning on your phone, and would be easily annoyed when things go awry -- and justifiably so.

3. None of the above.

POLITRICKIN' AND THE ECONOMY

Have you ever been fishing or worked in the fishing industry?

1. Yes.

2. No.

Have you worked in forestry or the pulp and paper industry?

1. Yes.

2. No.

Have you worked on a farm?

1. Non.

2. Oui.

Have you worked as a tree-planter or fighting wildfires?

1. Oui.

2. Non.

Are you really Canadian if you or a family member haven't done at least one of the above?

1. No, you are not.

2. Yes, of course! What a silly question!

Do you work in government?

1. Non.

2. Oui.

What percentage of Canadians work in government?

1. ~25%.

2. ~75%.

Roughly 13% of income earners in Canada make more than $85,000 (almost $7,100 a month) after tax.

1. False.

2. True.

What percentage of Canadian wage earners make less than $32,000 (a little over $2,600 a month) after tax?

1. 13%.

2. Around 40%.

3. More than 80%.

What percentage of Canadians earn more than $145,000 ($12,083 per month) after tax?

1. Roughly 4%.

2. Almost exactly 44%.

3. Less than 0.04%

   
   

The current electoral system:

1. Should remain as it is because it got us to where we are and works as intended.

2. Sucks. But we don't have to reinvent the wheel or conduct a radical experiment to make it so much better. We could just replace first-past-the-post with any of the far more democratic versions working perfectly well in other ally nations.

3. I have no opinion about the electoral system.

Most Members of Parliament in Canada:

1. Are type-A dopes who think they're smarter than everyone around them and are far too aroused by the sound of their own voices to notice that performing their weird, adversarial barking is deeply counter-productive.

2. Are more concerned with their hair and clothes than their constituents and spend public money like it's a corporate slush fund there to enhance their personal comfort and provide a celebrity level of luxury but without any of the skill of an actor, musician, or athlete.

3. Know nothing about Canadian history or law and least of all about the experience of typical Canadians.

4. Have good intentions.

MPs should:

1. Have higher salaries so we attract the best candidates.

2. Be far better compensated but selection should be by lottery like a trial jury.

3. Be abolished and replaced with a 21st century ballot system where communities can directly vote for initiatives they are support or oppose.

4. Be selected only out of the wealthiest families in the nation but with crimes such as corruption, fraud, or treason resulting in special class of barbaric punishments carried out by the public.

5. Exist just as they do now but be required to wear a Parliamentary costume that includes only a diaper and powdered wig.

When voting in a federal election:

1. You tend to vote for the party leader you like best.

2. You only consider the party (and vote for the one most popularly associated with your personal politics).

3. You read all the stated policy positions of all the parties ever since you realized that, for example, the Conservatives don't have the most conservative agenda and the Liberals not a liberal one.

4. You don't vote in any election, preferring to spoil your ballot.

5. You don't vote in the federal election (because effectively the entire population appears only capable of voting for one of two parties regardless of circumstances).

6. You don't vote in the federal election (because the election tends to be over even before the voting booths close in your district).

7. Something else.

What was up with that Trudeau guy?

1. Say what you will but he had nice socks.

2. Look, he was better than the other guy.

3. I don't know but we should ask his ex-wife. She saw something.

   
   

On January 16th, 2026 the Federal Court of Appeal confirmed that the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act:

1. Was grounded in legal and national security precedence and fully justified under the circumstances, just as the Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister of Justice and Attorney General Lametti promised Canadians.

2. Infringed the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, deemed unreasonable and ultra vires (beyond legal authority).

What should the price of gas be?

1. Under $0.99/L

2. Well over $3.00/L

3. Why are automobiles still running on fossil fuels in 2026?

4. Why are we still driving in 2026?

Should Canada have gifted Alberta any rights to oil, gas, and mineral resources?

1. That's obvious. No. Most other nations wouldn't have done so, least of all resource economies like ours.

2. Gifted?

3. Of course.

Alberta should have a sovereign wealth fund worth two to four trillion dollars. Where did the money go?

1. Essential infrastructure and worthy causes.

2. Largely to foreign oil and gas companies, most of which are arms of foreign governments.

3. To Quebec via Ottawa.

4. I don't know but they did lose a lot of it to incompetence. Oh, and they built that golf course.

5. a + c

6. b + d

If Alberta has enough pipelines to wrap around the Earth 11 times (or cross Canada 59 times) why do they need more?

1. Sure it's enough pipelines to go to the Moon (and then wrap around the Moon a couple of times) but doesn't actually to GO to the Moon!

2. They don't need any more. At the very least, taxpayers don't need to help fund infrastructure projects for the wealthiest industry in the history of industry nor should we help secure land and negotiate on their behalf.

3. I have no feelings about pipelines.

   
   

Who should pay the $300 billion liability when oil and gas companies walk away from their legal obligations to remediate in the province of Alberta?

1. Taxpayers always cover the corporate costs and debts. Look at any mega-project, like the Olympics or a hydroelectric dam. It's the job of taxpayers to bail out private companies and fund the corruption endemic to all such projects.

2. The companies will pay, just look at Uranium City, Saskatchewan.

   
   

Do you think even one Albertan knows what equalization payments actually are?

1. Yes. It's legalized theft.

2. What we know for sure is that they know how to say it.

Should we take tax revenue from Alberta to construct a moat and wall around the province?

1. Yes. And we should also cut the tens of billions in annual federal tax deductions, write-offs, and subsidies they get. We should have done this decades ago when waste, neglect, and incompetence became perfectly clear.

Should we have a sonic boom corridor across the uninhabited north to allow for quicker flights over the deplorable provinces (Quebec to BC)?

1. Obviously. But also why not make it pass over Edmonton?

2. No way, Jose!

Did you know it is a US law (the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886) that requires cruise ships to stop in Canada and as such the cruise industry brings effectively no money to local businesses in, for instance, Victoria, BC?

1. Well, the paper says it's a critical part of the local economy and passengers bring in something like $100 million bucks.

2. How could cruise passengers bring in almost any money at all when local businesses tend to be closed before most ships arrive and those ships leave the same night, within hours of arrival? But, yes, someone is making money.

Have you ever been on a cruise?

1. What's a cruise?

2. No, but I've launched a cruise missile.

3. No, but I once delivered a social media screed that required me to leave my home and go missing overseas for several months.

4. Yes. I go on cruises regularly. There's nothing better in retirement than regular bouts of disabling sea sickness, food poisoning, Legionnaires' Disease, and/or Norovirus. I mean, the drinks are free and there are slot machines!

Do you currently have the Andes strain of Hantavirus?

1. Perhaps. Who can say? We may know in another four to eight weeks. (Until then I will do all my regular activities like volunteering at the hospital, daily exercise at my local swimming pool, weekly spin classes downtown, and babysitting my nieces.)

2. No, but I'm a close contact to someone who died from it -- which is why I hopped on a cruise ship for six-hours, then hopped on a five-hour flight to the closest international transportation hub, then took a daylong connecting flight back the United States, from where I flew another eight hours to the South Pacific before boarding a one-hour flight to a neighbouring island, and then spent two days on another ship to an extremely remote island.

3. No, but the way this is going...

4. Hantavirus is very rare, nearly impossible to catch or spread, and is not going to spread to non-endemic regions. This thing is under control. Clearly.

YERSTORY AND PLACE

The best evidence for the earliest human presence in the Americas are:

1. Some human footprints dating back around 22,000 years, plus or minus an eon or two.

2. Local oral histories.

3. The Enūma Eliš.

4. The Bible.

Presently, Canada recognizes are more than ___ distinct nations and more than ___ unique Indigenous languages within its borders.

1. 500 / 300.

2. 50 / 50.

3. 5 / 3.

What's the best estimate for when the first people travelled across the Atlantic and built settlements in North America?

1. Everyone knows that. La Navidad was constructed out of the wreckage of the Santa Maria in 1492.

2. Some time around the 980s.

3. What's the Atlantic?

It has been long understood that the earliest European settlement in Canada was constructed:

1. Around a thousand years ago.

2. In 1497, upon the arrival of Cabot and crew in what became Newfoundland.

3. At Québec City, founded by Samuel de Champlain on July 3rd, 1608.

Are there permanent Norse settlements or seasonal outposts in Labrador or on Baffin or Ellesmere islands?

1. Seems likely.

2. No chance.

3. No thoughts or opinions on the matter.

Did the Norse make it down the St Lawrence or over to New Brunswick and possibly beyond?

1. Where else could they source the wood or grapes described in their oral and written histories?

2. Who can say?

3. No! And you should stop inquiring about this.

Wolfe & Montcalm:

1. Are a band I was, like, really into before they got popular.

2. Make the best artisanal butter money can buy.

3. Are sisters from Quebec and Canada's most celebrated playwrights.

4. Commanded opposing sides of the pivotal Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Both men were fatally wounded in a one-hour clash that resulted in the fall of New France and establishing British dominance in North America.

5. Jointly commanded the HMS MacKenzie, the ship that broke through American blockades in the Strait of Abraham, leading to British victory in the War of 1812.

Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont should be on the three dollar coin (the Métis).

1. Without a doubt.

2. That's absurd. Both the coin and them on it.

3. Abstain.

Les Filles du roi should be on the four dollar coin (the Frenchy).

1. Stop being silly.

2. Love it!

Should we move Saskatoon to central BC?

1. Sure. Seems about right.

2. Certainly not.

What would you say to Moonlight Spending Time?

1. I like your thinking.

2. What are you on about?

Why do people refer to places east of the Rockies as "Western Canada"?

1. Do people do that?

2. Historical reasons, probably. For the same reason people call America's northeast the "Midwest".

3. For the same reason some folks weirdly divide the population in two racial categories.

4. Probably because everything west of Sudbury is Western Canada.

What if Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii were also on the half-hour like NFLD?

1. Makes sense. And the Gulf Islands could be on the quarter-hour.

2. Senseless.

3. Time is relative and subjective. We should get away from standardization.

Why is so much of the flora and fauna on the West coast purple?

1. Who knows? But I imagine it's complicated and varies with the type of organism. Probably high-altitude UV protection in some cases, chemical defense, the need to attract pollinators, and maybe specific environmental conditions like volcanic ash in the soil? Stuff like that.

2. All the magic.

CULTURE (YOUR CULT)

Other than a government document or ID, do you own anything with a maple leaf on it?

1. No.

2. Yes.

Should we swap the colours on the flag (to white leaf, red background) at tremendous public expense and then swap them back the following year at great additional expense?

1. Why not?

2. Why?

Should we replace the national anthem with the Tragically Hip's "Wheat Kings" or perhaps just ten seconds of silence followed by a long dash, and the words "to indicate exactly one o'clock Eastern Standard Time"?

1. Yes. Either is fine.

2. "Wheat Kings" for sporting events, the dash for everything else.

3. None of the above. If you had said something from Brian Adams, Neil Young, Steppenwolf, or Bachman-Turner Overdrive I would be all for this.

4. Why are you trying to erase our culture and history?

   
   

We purged the national gold reserve (which would be worth $200B today) but enhanced the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve (now at 133 million pounds). Most Canadian thing ever or civilization destroying blunder?

1. Travesty. These bloody Liberals...

2. Good sense. (Canada is one of the world's largest producers of gold and has tremendous natural reserves while gold ingots and coins cost a lot to store and secure and yield no interest or dividends).

Can you sing or at least hum your way though The Log Driver's Waltz?

1. Yes.

2. No.

Which word appears in The Log Driver's Waltz?

1. Curling.

2. Swirling.

3. Twirling.

4. Unfurling.

5. Hurling.

6. Squirreling.

7. Churling.

8. Birling.

9. Snerling.

"Why are you shaking your eyes?"

1. What?

2. "I'm not! I'm NOT! Why are you SAWING the TABLE!"

Your favourite cartoon, 1985's Oscar nominated The Big Snit, involves:

1. Scrabble, vacuuming, and global nuclear war.

2. Monopoly, dusting, and international trade.

3. Risk, mopping, and alien invasion.

Who are Casey and Finnegan?

1. A red-headed child and their floppy-eared dog, who are now retired and live on Hornby.

2. A pair of Irish twins who played as goalies for the 1919 Toronto St. Patricks.

What is the 'tickle trunk'?

1. I don't know but it sounds dangerous.

2. A gray puppet in the shape of an elephant's trunk, famous for sneaking up behind and tickling others as its primary form of communication and interaction.

3. It is big and red and bottomless and you never know what's going to come out of it.

Can you hear Peter Gzowski and/or Barbara Budd in your mind's ear?

1. Yes.

2. No.

3. Who are Budd and Gzowski?

4. What is a "mind's ear"?

If the CBC was one of our most important national institutions, the primary unifying cultural entity in this vast and diverse landscape and our only real bulwark against inundation by American slop, why was it abandoned to become a political weapon?

1. Why are you lying about the CBC?

2. Because capitalism, or something.

3. It wasn't "abandoned" but rather was captured and made irrelevant by an increasingly out-of-touch class senior management. What was abandoned was basic journalistic ethics and any loyalty to the country.

Should David Suzuki be mummified and housed at the CBC headquarters in Ottawa as Lenin is in Moscow?

1. Obviously.

2. No. He should be chopped up and placed into crab pots off of Haida Gwaii and then the crabs should be cooked on the beach for anyone who wants to share in the feast (just as Bill Reid wanted).

3. Who is David Suzuki?

Should Wayne Gretzky be entombed in an onyx and platinum casket at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto?

1. Obviously.

2. No. He should be dissolved and diluted into the water sprinkled from Zamboni machines.

3. What is a Wayne Gretzky?

Should Celine Dion be plastinated and then reanimated, like a Disneyland prop, and given a permanent stage to perform on below a casino in Las Vegas?

1. Yes.

2. No.

3. What's a Celine Dion?

Why aren't Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen on opposing sides of the two dollar coin?

1. Who can say?

2. Great idea!

The greatest Canadian musician of all time is:

1. Oscar Peterson, obviously. A close second would be Glen Gould.

Can you recognize or sing a Rush song?

1. What's a Rush?

2. Yes.

How many members of the Rheostatics have there been?

1. Who are the Rheostatics?

2. At least 8.

3. Some say we are all Rheostatics.

Broken Social Scene tends to have how many in their line-up?

1. An unwieldly and ever-shifting number between 4 and 19 depending on who you ask or when you see them.

2. What's a Broken Social Scene?

How many members of Arcade Fire have there been?

1. I want to go with over a dozen but there are least five core members, right?

2. Plenty.

3. What's an Arcade Fire? Sounds dangerous.

Who is Angine de Poitrine?

1. Yo mama!

2. Khn and Klek. That's all you need to know.

3. Maybe Daft Punk or The Famines.

The CFL that matters is:

1. The compact fluorescent light.

2. The Canadian Football League.

3. Close friends list.

4. Contact Following of Locomotion.

5. Calcaneofibular Ligament.

The NHL that matters is:

1. National Hockey League.

2. Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.

3. Natural Hard Lignin.

The best bagels come from:

1. Montreal, obviously.

2. Toronto.

3. New York.

4. None of the above. The best bagel is the nearest bagel.

Tim Hortons:

1. Should rebrand as Timmy Ho's and sell steamed buns, dumplings, and tea.

2. Should accept their role as neighbourhood shelters for the mentally infirm.

3. Is my favourite place to pick up coffee and donuts, though only through the drive-thru.

4. Who is Tim Hortons?

   
   

Did you bring Nanaimo bars to school for Multicultural Day?

1. What else was I going to bring?

2. No. That would be silly.

3. There was no Multicultural Day back in my day.

Should Ducknana be the official mascot of the Canadian Olympic team?

1. Clearly.

Did 'boopgate' unify Canada like no other event since WWII?

1. Perhaps. Perhaps.

2. No. That was the Vancouver Olympics.

3. Actually, WWII was one of the most divisive events in Canadian history.

How about moving from a universal fine for traffic violations to one that scales to your net worth?

1. No, I like that someone earning minimum wage pays a whole day's earnings for a parking ticket while the lawyer pays something equivalent to her per-minute fee. Makes sense.

2. Well, that's similar to what Finland has had for a century and most of Europe is doing now.

3. Who is driving in 2026?

What if we just gifted the US (or just the Trump family) everything south of Ottawa in exchange for two Trader Joe's, a Target, and all of their maple syrup?

1. This is the kind of creative thinking I'm into. Where do I sign?

2. How about instead we cut off all exports of oil, natural gas, electricity, soft wood and pulp, and iron and steel to the US?

3. No, but on July 5th we should enlist Cirque du Soleil and all the Canadian actors in Hollywood to re-enact the War of 1812 and the firebombing of the White House at the National Mall in DC (written and directed by Michael LePage, of course).

Should we send drones piloted by beavers dressed up as aliens to circle the New Jersey coastline?

1. Again, I love how you think!

2. Get serious.

3. Okay, but can the beavers be rabid and the drones armed with cream pies?

Should the military be entirely composed of senior citizens?

1. Love it! (But if you don't stop having these great ideas you might find yourself with a government job).

2. No. Because how would we fight China, Russia, Iran, South Africa, and Brazil in an existential world war to end all wars?

Does it makes sense to have a military if the Slovenian women's bobsledding team is better equipped and could have their way with us?

1. I hear what you're saying but if we don't gift all our tax dollars to American weapons companies we would have to build critical infrastructure and do things like support the arts. And, I mean, how else would we have all this political and trade leverage with the Americans?

2. It makes perfect sense. Haven't you read NATO's mutual aid obligations as spelled out under Article Five?

3. It doesn't make sense as we are not a global superpower and all Article Five says is: "Once triggered, all members are obligated to assist the attacked ally with actions they deem necessary." So a sternly worded Instagram post from the Canadian ambassador would meet our international mutual aid requirements.

Was there a "smoke pit" at your high school?

1. Yes. And it was a central feature. (And the unofficial "drink pit" was in the forest behind the teacher's parking lot.)

2. Of course not. Kid's can't buy cigarettes so why should they be allowed to smoke them at school?

Should we bring back cigarette vending machines and smoking sections to fast food restaurants and pizza shops?

1. Well, when I think about it such a policy could serve to reduce consumption of some of the most popular of our least healthy foods. And, I mean, there's just no way smoking cigarettes are far worse than regularly consuming soda, deep fried foods, and piles of cheese.

2. I like it but what if, instead of tobacco products, we installed vending machines for that cigarette-shaped gum or those soap bubble blowing cigarettes that are always being marketed to me on social media?

3. Yes, but make windowed smoking areas that are cramped and gloomy and with insufficient ventilation like those at some airports so we can watch the sad creatures generate their gross clouds of death.

4. Yes. And on airplanes and doctor's offices and on the evening news. And Dave Chapelle should lead the campaign.

5. No.

Do masks work?

1. Any fool knows engineering isn't real and that science is just a secular religion complete with prophets and sacred texts.

2. Masks work but the germ theory of disease is just a weak theory, like gravitation and evolution.

3. Masks are a tool like any other. And some folks will try to build a loadbearing structure with hot glue and duct tape.

   
   

Is Bill Gates in cahoots with Bell and Telus using your family pet as a surveillance device through a devious combination of the 5G network and mRNA vaccines (with the side effect of making your dog, cat, bird, or fish magnetic)?

1. That much is clear.

2. There's no need when we all went out an purchased the greatest ever surveillance tools, and more often several of them, and placed those in the most prominent locations in our homes and vehicles and also carry them on our person at all times. Some of us are convinced we can't perform the most basic human operations from thinking to pooping without them.