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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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.

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If there’s one thing that Canadian politics is good for (and maybe there is just one) it’s the introduction of new and fun terms to our collective lexicon. Remember our pre-Olympic love affair with the stodgy term prorogation? Ah, those were good times, listening to newscaster fumble over that unnecessarily complicated word, grasping at straws to try and explain how in the heck it was even legal, nevermind moral to just up and cancel Parliament.

But if you’re a political junkie like me you love these kind of moments in the Sun. Your heart skips a beat when the popular press picks up on a new polispeak word and runs with it. Well, friends, it’s happened again.

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