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Originally Posted by Firebot
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That's my point; they're adults who don't own their house, but they're counted as part of a census household that owns their residence. Similarly, anyone renting a room from an owner or who rents an illegal suite that Census Canada doesn't pick up on is an adult who isn't reflected as a renter, despite not owning. I've personally been in the latter situation when I was younger; I rented a detached suite but didn't get mail there, and Census Canada would have had no idea that I lived there.
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Census differentiates between non-census-family households (i.e. roommates) and census family households. Each roommate would be counted separately.
In your scenario, the 3 roommates would be counted as 3 separate census families as they are not related or in a common law relationship.
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The 3 roommates would be counted as 1 household though. Here's the definition from the census:
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Household refers to a person or group of persons who occupy the same dwelling and do not have a usual place of residence elsewhere in Canada or abroad. The dwelling may be either a collective dwelling or a private dwelling. The household may consist of a family group such as a census family, of two or more families sharing a dwelling, of a group of unrelated persons or of a person living alone. Household members who are temporarily absent on reference day are considered part of their usual household.
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and:
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Household type refers to the differentiation of households on the basis of whether they are census family households or non-census-family households. Census family households are those that contain at least one census family. Non-census-family households are either one person living alone or a group of two or more persons who live together but do not constitute a census family. Census family households may be differentiated based on the presence of additional persons (that is, persons not in a census family).
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And the numbers bear that out. Sticking with BC, in the 2021 census there were 2,041,835 households. That number exactly matches the number of private occupied dwellings, which is also 2,041.835. If, as you say above, they were counting each member of a non-related household as their own household, then the number of households would exceed the number of dwellings. But they match exactly:
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...1&HEADERlist=0
So multiple unrelated adults who rent a dwelling are treated as a single renting household. And also, multiple unrelated adults who live in a dwelling where one of them owns it are treated as a single owning household. So you can see how there are situations where the number of non-owners is underestimated by simply looking at household data.