The Bureau, precursor to Statistics Canada, was founded in 1918 as a centralized national agency to replace piecemeal arrangements which had developed over time and no longer satisfied statistical needs. The author (who is a retired assistant chief statistician of Canada) traces its evolution and looks at the individuals who influenced it. He discusses how Canada's statistical system has coped with the country's evolution from a staple economy to a mature industrial power; the changing nature of the technology for gathering, compiling, analyzing, and disseminating information; and some notable Canadian contributions to the science and production of statistics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Curtis discusses census making as a political project, investigating its place in and impact on party politics and ethnic, religious, and sectional struggles.

Asserts that Canada has ten different social assistance programs that reflect the historical development of assistance within each province. To examine specific patterns of social assistance, the author develops a five-fold typology consisting of residual, market/family enforcement, conservative, market performance, and redistributive models. He uses the typology to compare development of assistance provisions in the provinces, provincial responses to federal initiatives, and unique trajectories of assistance regimes. He concludes by surveying some of the broader implications of his findings for issues such as the development of national standards and the impact of globalization on social assistance provision. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR