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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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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