expansion as necessary for their policy agendas. Government statisticians have succeeded in creating a mystique around official statistics and convinced users that only StatCan has the capacity to produce quality data. Recent political interventions by conservative governments into the Census have shifted attitudes towards the need for greater formal autonomy, pressuring for reforms that formalised some aspects of Statistics Canada’s independence. Canada’s distribution of statistical authority has been shaped by the country’s institutions, including the Westminster administrative tradition, which moderated recent pushes to formalise StatCan’s autonomy.