Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

'The common good against the individual good'

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, July 14, 2010 12:06pm - 0 Comments

While the minister manages to both lament the intrusiveness of the census and encourage you to cooperate with next year’s “survey,” you can add TD Bank’s Don Drummond and the director of Toronto Public Health to the list of those who oppose the change. In addition to calling for an amendment to the Statistics Act, the Liberals want the industry committee recalled to deal with the issue.

The CBC’s David McKie, meanwhile, offers a review of the matter.

Currie says just because people dislike completing forms, doesn’t mean governments should let them off the hook. ”People objected to seatbelts. People object to legislation on anti-smoking. They object to the legislation on cell-phone use in cars. But we do things for the common good. We have to measure the common good against the individual good. Nobody says we should cut out jury duty and not have it obligatory. And no one says we should cut out the census except the minister.”

Tags: census, Statistics Canada, TD Bank, Tony Clement, Toronto Public Health

More by Aaron Wherry

Gaunilon

~~McKie~~ Currie has managed to conflate a number of different things.

Seatbelt laws, for example, have little to do with the common good – rather they are a violation of individual rights since the state requires you to do something for your own good that has no effect on anyone else. Smoking laws in many cases are also violations of individual freedom without respect to the common good, except where there is a likelihood of non-smokers unwillingly subjected to second-hand smoke.

With jury duty and cellphones in cars, on the other hand, the intent is to safeguard the common good by sacrificing a personal convenience. That is indeed comparable to the census situation. I would say the requirement of jury duty is a perfect analogy: the state requires you to give up a bit of your time for the common good. Perfectly reasonable.

http://intensedebate.com/people/bergkamp bergkamp

"Seatbelt laws, for example, have little to do with the common good …. "

Thank you, Gaunilon, for saving me the time and effort in explaining why McKie/Currie are stuck on stupid.

I also liked McKie/Currie's " And no one says we should cut out the census except the minister.” If by 'no one', McKie/Currie mean a significant percentage of Cons base and many others who value privacy, than I agree no one was bothered by census other than Minister.

But cbc folks don't live in a bubble, oh no. They have lots of friends who aren't progressives, really!

http://intensedebate.com/people/tedbetts tedbetts

What basis do you have to conclude that "a significant percentage of Cons base and many others"?

Clement admitted he did not consult anyone and refuses to provide any basis for statement that there have been complaints. So clearly he has no basis but he is also not claiming there is a large number of people who support his arbitrary unilateral decision.

Perhaps you do have some basis for your conclusion though. I'd be very interested in hearing about it.

http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

Putting on a seatbelt reduces your risk of becoming a human projectile should you be in a serious collision. Being a human projectile is more likely to cause your death, which means that the collision reconstruction team called out to investigate has to spend a whole lot more time on your collision than on one where no serious injuries are reported. It also means the coroner's office has to be called in. If you don't die, you'll probably end up in intensive care, for longer than if you had been smacked in the gut by your steering wheel. This is an expense to the health care system. So yes, it sounds like a nanny-state regulation, but really, it's more "common good" than you'd think, initially.

The same can be said for smoking, given its association with long-term chronic illnesses, such as emphysema, among those exposed to second-hand smoke on a prolonged basis (ie, all the employees of the bar or casino in which people light up).

Gaunilon

If you're going to use the cost to the healthcare system as justification for enforcing certain behaviour, then there are some very strange consequences. For example, we should also then enforce regular exercise, healthy eating habits, restricted alcohol use, safe sex, and limitations on risky activity such as sky-diving.

In short, if "it costs the healthcare / coroner / emergency response system which we all pay for" is your argument then you might as well kiss freedom goodbye.

The whole point of freedom is that you're free to do what you want, regardless of whether other people think it's good for you, as long as you don't infringe on their freedom. It does conflict with state-run healthcare, but that is an argument against state-run healthcare, not freedom.

http://intensedebate.com/people/bergkamp bergkamp

"If you're going to use the cost to the healthcare system as justification for enforcing certain behaviour … "

I knew a nurse years ago and she said a large percentage of people who end up in emergency room are there because of falling in/out of bathtubs and people falling over when the are putting pants on in morning and their leg gets stuck.

So if we are going to start banning random things for the 'common good' and health care costs, I think bathtubs and pants should be banned because they create more hospital visits than second hand smoke does.
Holly Stick

So Gaunilon, why are you so intent on denying women the freedom to control their own bodies?

Mr. Irrelevant

Because of this: "The whole point of freedom is that you're free to do what you want, regardless of whether other people think it's good for you, as long as you don't infringe on their freedom"

Gaunilon (presumably a pro-lifer, based on your comment) believes that the woman's exercise of freedom infringes someone else's (the baby's). Apparently you disagree, which is certainly fair enough. But what you need to do, if you want to discuss anything like a reasonable person, is understand that this is why the people who disagree with you disagree with you, and not some imagined hatred of women that must make you feel very good inside, opposing such unabashed evil, while shielding you from having to think about what they really believe, and the consequences if they just happen to be right.

Mr. Irrelevant

You're right, but for the wrong reasons. In fact, if cost to the health care system justifies restriction of freedom, we actually need to mandate all of these unhealthy practices. Nothing is worse for the public purse than a long life followed by slow demise into a death that cannot be avoided, only delayed. What if that seatbelt wearer lives until 110 and along the way needs a hip replacement, 50 years worth of prescription medication, rides the bus when his eyesight goes and he can't drive a car anymore, all the while collecting CPP and other old age benefits before an expensive 6 month battle with some illness or other finally kills him? You wouldn't pay the cost of a coroner up front to get that leech out of the way??

Not to sound callous here, but if the good of the public purse justifies any limit on the freedom of personal behaviour, everyone should be executed on their 65th birthday.

Gaunilon

You're absolutely right that that is the logical conclusion; I'm on record on these boards saying that I'm pretty sure we will see some such "solution" enacted within my lifetime if those who value statism over freedom win the current culture war.

However, for today's situation, the thinking hasn't quite gotten that far. People are still operating on the (mis)understanding that healthcare costs are saved by keeping everyone as healthy as possible, and that the state can thus mandate certain behaviour since the state ends up footing the bill…which is the justification given above for seatbelt laws, and which leads as an intermediate conclusion to mandating all the other things I mentioned (exercise, safe sex, diet, etc.) And ultimately, as you point out, to mandated euthanasia.

Marion

It also increases your chances of causing injury to other passengers in the car, especially if you are on the back seat.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

And no one says we should cut out the census except the minister.

Wrong. The short form remains compulsory.

Yes, the way they are ruining the long form is dumb. But if the arguments against the decision could be a little more reasonable, that would certainly help the debate. Professor Gordon, your country needs you!
Dismayed

Thanks for the round up Wherry, any insight of your own? Or do you only publish your opinion when they promise not to include your name, like the G20 protest articles?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jesse_Rosenberg Jesse_Rosenberg

You understand that this is his job, right?

http://intensedebate.com/people/tobyornotoby tobyornotoby

In other Census news …

This morning on CBC Radio's The Current, Dean del Mastro said the new method will be just as valid statistically and backed that up by mentioning that he had taken some statistics classes.

So there you have it statisticians, Dean took some classes and it will all work out.

Holly Stick

Would someone please invent a two-way radio link so listeners could zap politicians who say stupid things on the radio?

Dave

Thank you, Holly! I'm off to the patent office first thing in the morning! Izagonnaberich!
tobyornotoby

You mean when I argue loudly with what they are saying on the radio, it doesn't actually work?

Dee

Judging from what Dean del Mastro said on The Current, I would recommend he go back to school and take those stats courses over again because he, like Tony Clement, clearly doesn't understand the most basic statistics.
Matlock

Ok, what happened to today's MPs such that Dean Del Mastro, a man who took "a few statistics classes" at the University of Windsor (as part of a commerce B.A.), has the gall to claim the former Chief Statistician of Canada of 23 years has it all wrong? (Not to mention the evergrowing list of associations, professors, think tanks, and many, many Ph.D's)

Have we truly regressed to such an anti-intellectual society that we now question centuries of hard mathematical science?

Holly Stick

Well, I definitely heard him imply that everyone who opposed the Conservatives' decision was doing so for political reasons. The usual Conservative assumption that everyone else has the same low motives as they themselves have.

Wascally Wabbit

Heard Dean DelMastro trying to be the CPC's Chief Statistician this morning. Not the brightest knife in the draw to send out to defend the Harper government's position on the numbers game.

Of course – where he – and apparently some early commenters here fall down is – it's not an invasion of privacy when you are supplying information to someone who is sworn to keep it secret and who uses numbered forms with no identifiable information about the invidual being interviewed. It is not private information – it is the individual providing input for the communal good!

About the same as the misinformation they put out on other serious matters – starting with the Gun Registry!
Wascally Wabbit

the same folks who protest here will be eager to give out much the same information to an insurance company for house insurance or a bank for a mortgage!
More B/S from Harper and his minions!

brooster

And volunteer personal information in on-line commercial transactions and social network forums, where privacy is much more at risk than it is in a census long form.
http://intensedebate.com/people/tedbetts tedbetts

I think the defenders of "not being completely boneheaded stupid", need to stop comparing the compulsory long form census to credit cards and insurance company forms. The dumb Conservatives are trying to make the long census forms voluntary just like submitting info to those finance companies is voluntary. It doesn't help the case.

Pointing out the negative impact on policy making helps, but not with these people.

Pointing out how having good and accurate data helps keep government accountable, as the right-leaning CD Howe does, may help with some of these people.

brooster

It's not the compulsory vs. voluntary issue I'm addressing above. It's the spurious fear of privacy-invasion. StatsCan has embraced confidentiality like a religion and, in my mind, are the organization/institution least likely to play fast and loose with any confidential information.

Halo_Override

Is there one example of any institution or individual of significance who is not associated with the Conservatives and has come forward as a supporter of this change? Anyone at all?

http://intensedebate.com/people/tedbetts tedbetts

I can think of lots who are not in any way associated with any of the other parties and even ones who are associated with conservaties if not the Conservative Party who have come forward as an opponent of this change. That's easy.

But you make a very good and telling point.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Halo_Override Halo_Override

Well there's the thing, eh? Even the folks whose support Conservatives could normally take for granted (or at least expect a sympathetic hearing from) are publicly coming out against this. I really don't get who they're playing to; the tinfoil-hat voting bloc is not going to move any seats one way or the other.

Mr. Irrelevant

I'm not a fan of this change but it is worth noting that those groups that have come out are self-interested on this point. As I understand the government's position (to the extent that they are even willing to explain it themselves) it's not a matter of improving the data but that the data collection is too intrusive. The evidence of this is scant, but even if it was a real problem, every single group decrying the government's position would still be decrying the government's position because they want the data for their purposes.

Colin

The worst thing about this whole fiasco is the lack of any consultation with affected parties. Say we take for granted the CPC assertion that there is some reasonable concern about the intrusiveness of the long-form census, it would still have been possible to compromise and shift at least the most relevant weighting variables such as income, education, and ethnicity onto the short-form and then make the remaining questions on the long-form voluntary, but now with the ability to weight them appropriately. In all the justifications I've seen from Clement he is critical of examples that are seemingly supposed to be inane ("Who needs to know what time you leave for work in the morning?") when the critics are pointing to questions that are highly relevant (the above mentioned, income, education, etc.). If there had been consultations, instead of talking past each other, they could at least have vied for compromise.

That being said I think the privacy concerns are dubious anyways, and a mandatory long form is still obviously highly desirable, but the way the whole thing has played out has simply been pathetic.
Dee

This census screw-up by the Conservatives leads me to propose a new acronym (saves typing!) for situations such as these (which are, sadly, becoming more and more prevalent)…. GBM: Governed by Morons.

GBM. 'nuff said.
Gary

Note that most commentors that have their panties in a bunch over the long form with all the personal information won't use their real names on this blog!
Just sayin'
http://intensedebate.com/people/tedbetts tedbetts

Or their last names Gary?

Very weak.

Especially when so very very very many people who use this data – government reps, private companies, left and right – have very publicly and with full names come out strongly against this stupid decision.

Try again.
Matlock

The Statistics Act does not cover blog comments, Gary. It does cover census information, and StatsCan employees can be jailed for up to 6 months for violating the act's confidentiality provisions.
Gary

Sorry, I was talking of the commentors on this blog.
I am not the one complaining so no need to add my last name to avoid hypocrasy.
Dee

Stats Canada protects Canadians' (who take the census) anonymity pretty well, last I heard.
Gary

WOW, I was unaware that Liberals have no sense of humor and are quite thick as well.
Listen closely folks…………
My point was that MANY people commenting on this blog are up in arms over the fact that the long form is not manditory anymore so that it will not help the common good of Canadians by asking for a bit of personal information, but will not list a personal detail as minute as their name on this blog.
As far as confidentiality of private documents? I'm not convinced that mistakes won't happen. I can't remember the times I've scanned a newspaper reading about Government offices purging these documents only to have the general public uncover them in some disposal unit unshredded.
Matlock

"Note that most commentors that have their panties in a bunch over the long form with all the personal information won't use their real names on this blog!
Just sayin' "

There is ZERO humour in that comment, just snarkiness.

And I am not a liberal. I am a conservative, and an economist and statistician. I have seen census data used for extremely constructive purposes and can tell you that data from a voluntary survey is garbage data, and I am disenfranchised that the CPC has transformed over the years to represent anti-intellectualism and aversion to evidence-based public policy.
Lord Kitchener's Own

Claiming that people are hypocritical to insist that a government agency continue to receive mandatory information from citizens, the confidentiality of which is protected by statute on pain of imprisonment for the government employee who violates it, because the same people don't want to put their real names next to a blog post on the completely open and public website of a national magazine, is like calling someone hypocritical for allowing their photo to appear on their drivers license, while refusing to allow their photo to be published on the front page of Macleans. It's an absolutely ludicrous and specious analogy.

It's also just not funny.