Canadian census 'deletes' little village

OTTAWA, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- A village in Canada with a population of 34 is disputing its disappearance as reported in Statistics Canada's census figures released this week.

The hamlet of Atwater, about 100 miles northeast of Saskatchewan's capital of Regina, was classified as abandoned in census figures released Tuesday by the federal statistics agency.

That raised hackles among some residents who completed census forms, The National Post reported.

Brenda Rausch and her husband own the only business in Atwater, an automotive garage. She told the Post she was "confused how we fell off the map" because everyone she knows completed their census forms.

"We think it's pretty funny because we know we're here, we're paying our taxes and our electrical bills -- we thought it was a joke," she said. "We definitely exist, I can tell you that."

Marc Hamel, director general of Census Canada, told the newspaper the village's "abandoned" designation was under review.

"In this case, it could be a delineation error, where they were allocated to another region, but they were likely still counted," Hamel said. "Sometimes, very rarely, we run in to these anomalies, and we have a process for undertaking reviews in such a case."