1946 Canadian census
census in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, Canada
The 1946 Canadian census was the fifth, and last, of a series of special censuses conducted by the Government of Canada covering the rapidly expanding Northwest Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These censuses were conducted every ten years from 1906 to 1946, and ceased when the nationwide census switched from decennial (every year ending in 1) to quinquennial (every year ending in 1 or 6) in 1956. This census was conducted as of June 1, 1946.
The entire population of Canada for 1946 was estimated at 12,292,000, an increase of 1.8% over the previous year.
The Prairie Provinces in 1946 recorded a total of 2,362,941 individuals, the only instance where the population recorded a decrease compared to the previous special census. Of those, 726,923 resided in Manitoba, 832,688 resided in Saskatchewan, and 803,330 resided in Alberta.
Canada's Statistics Act legislation does not permit the release of personal information until 92 years have elapsed. Detailed information from this census is not due for release until 2038.
The previous census was the nationwide 1941 census and the following census was the nationwide 1951 census.
“1946 Canadian census” enters the record as census in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, Canada. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Canadian, census and Alberta can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1946 Canadian census” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Canadian, census and Alberta provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q21070674. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1946, 1906, 1956 and 2038.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “1946 Canadian census” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.