I love it, the debate surrounding the long form census. It’s exciting, it’s engaging, and if nothing else it’s great to see (and hear) that this kind of discussion can be had in this great country of ours. It can be, right?
If you’ve read my blog for more than a little bit then you know that I try my best to present a non-partisan view of things. Really, I try, but sometimes honesty can be mistaken for partisanship, I think, if you read me the wrong way. For example, I could say something like, “Stephen Harper runs a tight ship, giving little to no control over to his Ministers, with even the smallest governmental details passing across his desk,” and you could mistake that for a pot shot at our Prime Minister. But, truly, I’m not one for pot shots and when I say something like that I mean it as more of a fact than an opinion. The sentence following that one will be an opinion, but that’s more obvious. And why is this so important? Because I believe that a discussion about scrapping the mandatory long form census should be one that transcends politics altogether, let me tell you why.
Stephen Harper runs a tight ship, giving little to no control over to his Ministers, with even the smallest governmental details passing across his desk. I don’t necessarily agree with his style, but that’s why I didn’t vote for him. Still, while a lot of the time this kind of control factor can be nothing more than bothersome for policy makers and politicians it can be, at times, detrimental to our national health and identity. There are examples of this in the national housing strategy, our international agreements, and key pieces of criminal justice legislation. Harper has the final say and sometimes the only say, it seems. Discussion be damned, and for certain issues this simply does not fly; in my opinion the long form census is one of those issues.
The long form census and Statistics Canada fall within the portfolio of Industry Minister Tony Clement but it’s never been a politicized piece, it’s meant to not be. Stats Canada has the job of collecting information on the Canadian population to improve our quality of life and to protect our democratic society not to bolster the ranks of any particular political party or cause. It’s arms-length from the governing parties and it’s objective. So when a political party, nay, a Prime Minister, decides that the mandatory long form census is too coercive and too intrusive it does tend to rattle the cage a little bit. And the birds no like.
Remember, it wasn’t Statistic Canada that spoke out about abolishing the mandatory census, it was the Conservatives. It wasn’t the minority governing party along with its opposition that agreed that the survey was an unnecessary intrusion, it was the Prime Minister’s Office. It wasn’t a consensus of Canadians that raised their voices in support of such a move, it was a man. And if the firestorm of protest against canceling the long form census is any indication, there won’t be anyone raising their voices in support and if they are, they’re going to be awfully late to the party. Indeed, the list of long form census supporters is long in itself and it isn’t merely political groups that are raising their concern (the majority are non-partisan). Included on the list are municipalities, cities, towns, charity groups, businesses, think tanks, and even some of the most conservative newspapers in Canada. All agree that scrapping the long form census is wrong.
The political argument against the mandatory long form census is that it’s too intrusive and that Canadians who receive it can face jail time for not completing it. That does sound scary but we live in a liberal democracy and we have to make some choices. Do you want the government to build a school in your neighbourhood to accommodate all of the new, young families moving into the area? Do you want proper and decent health care services available within a short drive from where you live? Do the working poor in the impoverished area across town need more suitable housing that they can afford? Are these things important to you because the information that drives these decisions is what we lose if we lose the long form census.
But there is a sensible solution to the census situation, and it’s simple: revise and revisit the census questions.
From the sounds of it I can agree that some of the questions on our last long form census were a bit ridiculous and, sure, a bit intrusive. I’m not sure the government needs to know how many hours a week I spend doing housework, so there’s room to improve, but should the whole thing be scraped because of some poorly-conceived questions? I don’t think so. Is that decision to be made by a political party in a minority governing situation? Certainly not. Do national statistics organizations need to exist far and away from the political government itself? I would say, yes indeed. Forget the political sensationalism, forget the partisanship, and focus on making decisions and having discussions that deal with the fundamental values of Canadian society. The census does not need to be scrapped, at most it needs to be fixed. That is all I’m saying.
But anyway, maybe that solution is a little too naive. No fear, I have another. Make the long form census mandatory for all Canadians but add a bonus question on the end: Does this seem too intrusive to you?
Let democracy decide. 
The thing I find so ridiculous about this entire debacle is a voluntary long form will cost more money to distribute and return worse results. The only two elements to a census are how much does it cost and how useful are the numbers it returns. The PM has decided to focus on privacy, ignoring the fact StasCan has ironclad rules regarding the use of the data.
The more I hear about the lead up to this bizarre decision by the PMO the more it seems like petty revenge. Statistics collected and published by StatsCan are continually making legislation put forward by Conservatives seem backward and unnecessary. The best example is the extensive crime package the PM has being trying to pass that includes tougher sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums. The whole bill hinged on the fact crime is rampant and getting more dangerous. That sounded like good logic until it was pointed out by StatsCan that crime rates for both violent and non-violent crime has dropped every year for the last 20 years.
I think the PM has fallen into the trap of thinking that because all of his decisions are motivated by ideology that everyone must be governed by ideology as well. People who work at StatsCan don’t have an agenda. They don’t collect numbers to make people look bad or rally public support to their cause. They collect numbers because numbers tell stories and lead to better public policy.
[...] to reliable, accurate data. Canadians would lose good data on their country’s population. My second concern was that the move to scrap the long-form census was a political decision, by a political party, and [...]
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