Or, “The Real Reason We Left T.O.”.

When it comes up in conversation, Maria and I never shy again from a good Rob Ford joke. We tell people that he’s the real reason why we left Toronto, and some of the time, it feels very much like the truth.

Although they said it couldn’t be done, although they said he’d need the support of council—which he’d never get—and the support of the people of Toronto—which he’d never have enough of—he’s doing it. Rob Ford is nearly single-handedly dismantling the City of Toronto.

He’s blown through the city’s surpluses created by Mayor Miller, he’s repealed taxes and fees which are going to have to be replaced with funding cuts, he’s declared war on the city’s social services and programming, and he’s flipping the bird not just to cyclists and pedestrians, but to motorists too. What’s more, Doug Ford, the mayor’s equally erudite brother, claims to have never heard of Margaret Atwood, one of this country’s most celebrated authors, after she spoke out against Ford’s earlier comments about closing Toronto libraries. That is, Doug Ford thinks that since there are more libraries than Tim Horton’s stores in his Etobicoke neighbourhood, some of those libraries have got to go.

What the Fords are doing to Toronto is not surprising, I don’t think, to anyone. If anything what’s surprising is how easily they’re getting it all done. With the Fords in charge, politics in Toronto feels more like schoolyard wheeling-and-dealing than it does governance of the country’s most populated city.

But,  if anything, Rob Ford’s alleged middle finger salute and his brothers comments about Margaret Atwood aren’t atypical but are becoming the norm. That’s because politics in Toronto, and elsewhere, are seeing the rise of a new kind of anti-intellectualism. A second coming of the Dark Ages.

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I know enough pixels and paper have already been wasted on the long gun registry so I’ll try to make this one worth your time.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the Conservatives seem to have something against the term ‘long’. Is this odd? If nothing, I find it a bit alarming. First, was the concerted move straight from the Prime Minister’s Office to scrap the long-form census. This important aspect of Canada’s national census was seen by the Prime Minister as intrusive, invasive and unnecessarily. Indeed, an unnecessary invasion into the homes and the lives of Canadians. Ultimately, the decision was met with chorus upon chorus of protest particularly from people we refer to in layman’s terms as experts. People who knew what they were talking about, who opposed dismantling our national survey.

The Conservative’s second attack in their campaign against all things long is the long gun registry. For strikingly similar reasons, a private member’s bill put forward in the House of Commons, and supported roundly by the Conservatives, aims to scrap the registry and do away with the registration program. Simply put from the governing party, it’s too intrusive and unnecessary. And, in what feels very much like a scene from Groundhog Day, the Conservative decision is opposed by experts. Experts like the R.C.M.P., like the Canadian Chiefs of Police, and like Nurses—who are apparently experts on gun control? Yeah, I don’t know about that last one.

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My wife, Maria, and I got together with some friends over the weekend to enjoy a meal, some games, and to chat. The chats were enlightening—except for my contributions, of course—and, like conversations all across this country, the topic of the long-form census came up. Now I know everyone who’s been writing about the census keeps bringing up the fact that it’s so dog-gone strange to be talking about such an obscure topic in the heat of the summer but, really, it is worth saying. Here we are, in the middle of the summer, talking about our national survey. Who would’ve thought. But the fact that the topic is still so talked about—that it isn’t going away—is particularly interesting to me.

My friends and I are from a particular segment of society. We’re young. We are, as one of my friends pointed out, “highly-educated” compared to most standards. Some of us were raised in a conservative tradition, others more liberal, and all of us are involved in the life of our local communities in some way. All of us agreed that scraping the long-form census was a very bad idea but beyond that, as the conversation evolved, it became clear that we also harboured a deep-seeded worry as well.

The worry that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives might one day win a majority.

This is the worry, and I know we’re not alone.

“What would he do with a majority?” a friend asked, “look what he’s doing under a minority government when his power is restricted.”

Indeed, it’s something to be concerned about.

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In the early 1690′s in the colony of Massachusetts in what would become the United States of America a witch hunt broke out. Led by the Puritans, a movement within the Church of England who were both extremely religious, in their own right, and rather political, they sought to track down and bring to trial anyone who they thought might be a witch. The indications that witchcraft were taking place in the colony were obvious: families would often find their crops or livestock devastated by bad weather, blight, or even earthquakes. The only explanation for such devastation was evil magic. The indications that one was a witch were pretty obvious as well: any woman who was single or recently widowed.

The truth behind the Salem Witch Hunt is that there were a number of pretty simple social and economic factors at work behind the scenes.

Socially, the Puritan community was very tight-knit and very religious. The rules by which they lived their lives and operated their societies were strict and unforgiving. What’s more, these were politically-minded people; people who had chosen to leave England and make a new way for themselves in the colonies—opposing opinions abounded. And these were hard economic times. Growing families were encroaching on one another’s farm lands, crops and livestock (due to completely natural reasons) were susceptible to the weather and to disease, and it was increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Mass panic over the possible presence of witchcraft in the colony would find fertile ground to grow in and when it began to spread it probably felt natural and right. Witchcraft, the thing that the Puritans feared the most, explained everything that was going wrong; it was the answer to everything.

Enter Stockwell Day, former Minister of International Trade, presently the head of the Treasury Board and our government’s Chief Witch Hunter.

On July 23, 2010 Day spoke about the long-form census on Edmonton-based radio station CHED 630AM explaining that why it was, ultimately, unnecessary:

We live in an information age where any 12-year-old kid can push any button on the Internet and find out any information he or she wants without threatening a citizen that they’re going to go to jail.

In this witch hunt, my friends, facts and statistics are our evil magic.

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In my article Some Stats on Stats, I talked about my grief with the Conservatives who are relying on anecdotal evidence, rather than cold hard fact, in their pursuit of the elimination of the long-form census. I complained about Tony Clement’s assertions that Canadians have been complaining about the coercive and intrusive nature of the mandatory census. It was in defense of these Canadians, Clement said, that the government has been on the move against the long-form. Well, using statistics—of all damn things—I, and others, have shown these assertions to be false. Only three people have complained to the Privacy Commissioner about the long-form census over the past 10 years, and no one has ever been jailed for refusing to fill it out.

But, to be fair, I’ve dug even deeper and found some further statistics.

In total, there have been 50 complaints about the long-form census over the past 20 years. Most of these complaints, over half, originated in 1991 and were as a result not of the census itself but of the way Statistics Canada hired enumerators to review the census forms. That year, Canadians worried that because of a change in the hiring process, it could be their neighbours or friends reviewing their personal census data. In 1996, StatsCan report a total of 16 complaints out of the approximately 5.8 million people who received the mandatory long-form census and in 2001 the number of complaints was down to one, with two more complaints coming in 2006.

I was compelled to compile a few more facts, and include a follow-up to yesterday’s article after reading George Jonas’ full comment in the National Post last night. It’s worth a read, and despite disagreeing with a lot of his premises (e.g., the government is out to get you), he had me interested until the end. The end, where George dropped the ball, and where my heart just sunk in my chest.

Without hesitation, and without provision of any previous data, Jonas launches into his very own personal nugget of a census story featuring, of course, the little old lady next door. The lady next door who, in 1996, despite assurances from StatsCan, had her census form read by a neighbour and her privacy invaded. I’ll grant you that it must’ve been an unpleasant and intrusive experience for the woman, and Jonas is perhaps right to mention it, but again I stress this, too: Even the most stalwart opponents of the mandatory long-form census have nothing to stand on but anecdotes.

Like Clement and Harper who assure us that there are Canadians opposed the long-form census—somewhere out there—Jonas, who is evidently violently opposed to the long-form himself, relies on nothing more than hearsay evidence to make his case.

Really, still on this?  Really.

With only, literally, days until this year’s census forms go to the printing presses one has to wonder if it’ll do any good to continue to try and put pressure on the Harper government, but one must try. I’ve been on holidays the past few days and, believe me, the only reason I haven’t been writing up a storm is because I haven’t been able to. There is something to be said for the blissful beauty of an Internet-free existence—but there are other things that must be said, too. A lot has continued to brew over the long-form census, and a lot still needs to be said. The fact that the Conservatives are pushing ahead with their agenda to scrap the census is mind-boggling, but pushing ahead they are and I’m growing a bit tired of trying to be civil about it all. It’s ridiculous, but rather than editorialize about why the move to scrap the long-form census is a bad idea let me try, and I stress try, to muster up some non-partisan stats for y’all. Because after all, this is about stats, right?

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Well, start bailing, this ship’s goin’ down.

Late yesterday afternoon word came out that Munir Sheikh, the head of Statistics Canada the body responsible for the national census, had canceled a town hall meeting, previously scheduled as an information session for StatsCan employees about the scrapped long-form census. The fact that the meeting was canceled at the last minute raised more than a few eyebrows, and we all waited to see what would happen next. Then, later into the night, the news came: Sheikh was resigning his position.

And now, the boat begins to sink in earnest.

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