The Northern Policy Institute is hoping to get a better understanding on Northern issues by collecting data through surveys this month.
The initiative is called Measurement Month and it includes surveys done online and by phone for the larger communities in the North, said Martin Lefebvre, a senior researcher at the institute.
The data collection period for the surveys started on Feb. 1 and runs until Feb. 15.
Lefebvre said it’s a way of filling a data gap and creating coherent comparable data from across Northern Ontario.
“Northern Ontario is a vast place, not that dense. It's also a hard place to get data [from places like Statistics Canada],” he said. “[With] the low population oftentimes important data isn't captured well or done in a coherent way across different communities.”
“By doing it in a burst of five surveys in the beginning of February, we're hoping … we can get comparable data across Ontario and make more informed decisions at the municipal, provincial and federal level for Northern Ontario issues."
The policy institute is partnering with other organizations to get the word out about the surveys through their professional networks.
This is the second year for the measurement month program he said, “we try and make keep as many of the same questions as we can year over year.”
“So as we go into further and further measurement months, we can start comparing with what data was like in 2022, 2023 going forward,” he said.
He said results from last year’s surveys get released through the year, with the final one to come this month.
He said the surveys cover topics including employee preparation and business succession, individual experiences which measures and assesses the gaps and opportunities Northern Ontario and an exit survey, which looks at the perspectives of people who have left the area.
Lefebvre said because of small data sets, they want to want to make sure that everybody's data is anonymous so they won’t identify anyone individually.
“That's why we're trying to hope to get as much response as possible so we can drill down these answers as deep as we can while maintaining privacy.”
He said provided the sample size is sufficient the policy institute will provide data to municipalities and local nonprofits.
The surveys can be found on the NPI website.
— NWOnewswatch
