Beyond The Commons

 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

Notes on a brouhaha

by Aaron Wherry on Monday, July 19, 2010 1:03pm - 0 Comments

Kevin Milligan looks at what Statistics Canada has to say about the accuracy of voluntary surveys. Mike Moffat says drop the threat of prison. Stephen Gordon wonders why the outrage Maxime Bernier was hearing wasn’t registered in the census review or the House of Commons. Tracey Lauriault lists some of the federal legislation that requires census data. Alice Funke explains how census data is used in elections. And Wikipedia details the Jedi census phenomenon the Prime Minister’s Office now cites.

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  • wilson

    From the department of ' a voluntary census will produce unreliable results'

    ''In the 2001 census, 21,000 Canadians put down their religion as Jedi Knight''

    • Emily

      Yes, it's another way of saying non-believer. A global prank our govt took seriously, instead of just recording it as such.

      If the form becomes voluntary, I'll put down Pastafarian. LOL

      • Cats

        Participation may be voluntary but if you do choose to participate you are still required to give factual answers.

        Mice day.

        • Emily

          It is factual. I'm a Pastafarian.

          But if I wasn't factual….what would they do to me?

          Prison? Fines?

        • Jan

          That sounds so coercive. Will I now go to jail for falsely filling out the voluntary form?

          • http://intensedebate.com/people/charlesh Charles H.

            Does the order in council actually change the Statistics Act? And is the NHS covered by the Statistics Act? If not and if so (in that order), then I'd assume that Section 31 still applies to the NHS.

      • Loraine Lamontagne

        I can imagine a future entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica for Canada, with a note that the information on religion is no longer compiled from census because of complaints from a handful of libertarians.

        Anyway, I have reading such information in encyclopaedias all my life. I didn't know I was committing an evil act.

        • Emily

          Well there you go!

          Knowledge is evil, didn't you know that?

          God said it right in the beginning, about 6000 years ago.

    • John D

      Just because something is silly doesn't make it unreliable. That is a reliable estimate of the number of Canadians who think religion is silly enough to call themselves Jedi.

    • Marion

      Why are you picking on the poor Jedi? Are you saying that their beliefs are less valid than, say, Scientologists? About 1500 people said they were scientologists in the 2001 census, and they have churches in 8 Canadian cities.

  • Olaf

    I'm curious about Lauriault's claim that these pieces of legislation "require census data"? Like, as in there are clauses in the legislation that say "if the census records statistic A is over 20% of the population, then remedial action B must be taken" type-thing?

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/ChrisWPG ChrisWPG

      E

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

      I think this is one of the most brain-dead stupid ideas Harper has implemented as PM to date.

      However, I'm not sure that list of 80 statutes is all that helpful in demonizing the government.

      Most of the references to the censur are tied into population numbers which are in the short form, not just the long form. Eg: The Funding for Diagnostic and Medical Equipment Act allocates federal funds for medical equipment purposes to provinces based upon provincial populations as recorded by the Chief Statistician.

      If that is the example, it is possible that a number of funding allocations are based upon the provincial proportion of X. This would not, to me, be a very strong argument for keeping the long form, unless there are other specific references and uses in the statutes.

      • Olaf

        The example in the Canadian Multiculturalism Act that I assume the author is referring to is that all federal agencies (not just statscan, mind) shall "collect statistical data in order to enable the development of policies, programs and practices that are sensitive and responsive to the multicultural reality of Canada", which is a nice idea but means essentially nothing.

        • Jan

          Think location of ESL classes. Never assume that because you don't see meaning in something, that there isn't.

          • Olaf

            Never assume that because you may think there's an arbitrary threshold by which ESL classes are necessarily warranted in certain population centres, that long form census data every five years will provide necessary or followed guidance (also, you're mother tongue is recorded on the short form data).

            "Ok, I have funding for new ESL language instruction in Ontario, but I don't know whether to put it in metro Toronto or Thunder Bay! Muskoka or Scarborough! How would I ever be able to guess without mandatory census data?!? I'm flying blind here!" "Um, you could see which ESL centres currently have insufficient capacity for individuals seeking ESL instruction". Etc.

          • Jan

            Actually no, detailed language questions are on the long form. The only language question on the short form is the language first learned at home and still understood.

          • Olaf

            Yes, detailed language question are. Like "what language does this person speak most often at home?", which really has nothing to do with the need for ESL requirements or capacity. The point remains, that specific funding decisions regarding ESL training aren't going to be made on the basis of long form census data. They're going to be made on the basis of where capacity is lacking, which is discerned from whether a facility has to turn away individuals with a need for ESL training (much of which is private sector anyway). From your argument, you'd think that census data forms the basis of whether or not a specific community is given funding for ESL training. Like one community says "we've had to turn away individuals for lack of capacity", and the other one says "according to census data, we project that in 12.5 years we're gonna need another ESL trainer", and the latter gets the funding earmarked for 12.5 years down the road. Get a grip.

          • Marion

            The long form also asks which official languages you speak.

            According to the short form, I speak neither.

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

      In the Income Tax Act, for example, Census data would be used to inform the equations that determine what the maximum tax-free allowances are, and the groupings of (what I observe* are) the 33rd, 67th, and top percentiles of income which determine at what rate individuals should be taxed.

      There could be other uses for the Census data in the ITA but those are what I come up with off the top of my head.

      *Based on my readings of Income Tax and Statistics Canada publicly available data, I estimate that those are the groupings of income, but I don't really know for certain.

    • http://notquiteunhinged.blogspot.com Catelli

      The Old Ages Security act allows the Minister to use Census data to confirm the age of an applicant.
      The Canada Transportation Act uses the census data to define what is or is not a metropolitan area (one of those arbitrary lines we discussed the other day)

      That's after searching the PDFs online, I didn't hit them all. But most did not reference census data, so I wonder on what basis Lauriault deemed all the acts listed as requiring census data. Was that from the acts themselves or the practical application thereof? I would be interested in seeing what the logic was.

      • http://notquiteunhinged.blogspot.com Catelli

        Follow up: The list that Lauriault has provided was provided to her by Statistics Canada themselves. Based on the comment that Tracey left at her blog, I am concluding that these are the acts that Statistics Canada is asked to provide data to support. The need for census data is not directly referred to in the Acts, but in the implementation thereof, census data is determined to be required.

        I would conclude that if anyone is truly interested what level of detail those requests go to (long form data or short form) then they will have to make requests of the ministries responsible for the listed acts.

        To address Olaf's questions from here and other posts, it appears that census data is very important to the implementation of policy not necessarily the forming thereof. It is my opinion that when implementing policy it is much more important to have accurate data than when forming as resources (time, money, personnel, or material) are now being allocated.

  • Standing By

    Whenever the Harper Tea Party PMO finds that its arguments aren't working on an issue, they invariably shift to a general condemnation of everyone who does care about the issue, branding them as elites, insiders, beltway people, and needless to say, Liberal stooges.

    I'm curious why this hasn't happened yet on this issue. I mean, never before have their arguments been more transparently ridiculous than on this issue. (Surely they don't think their Jedi misdirection is winning the debate?)

    Anyway, isn't it time for PMO to get their posters to start attacking everyone who cares about this, and the reporters who report on it? Why isn't this happening?

    Maybe I'll start the ball rolling:

    C'mon you liberals, real people don't care about the census. It's time to start talking about real issues' like why Iggy's bus broke down. (HAHA LOL LOL!) And Aaron, why no updates on the sponsorship scandal, huh?

    • Jan

      It's obvious that those of us who see the usefulness of the mandatory long form are out of touch with real Canadians. In related news, Dimitri Soudas denies that the government is engaged in a culture war.
      '

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/OntarioTown OntarioTown

    Hmmm…..summer wedgie. What's everyone talking about? The census to distract from the other issues that Harper doesn't want to focus on.

    G20, purchase of jets, etc., etc., etc.

    • danby

      Stephen Harper: a jack of masquerades and a master of bluffing

      • Dee

        Regarding this census issue, I prefer to call Harper and his peons, like Clement, Soudas, Baird, Flaherty, Bernier, ….etc., what they clearly are: liars and BS peddlers.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/RunningGag RunningGag

      Exactly what I was thinking. This is the Anthem thing all over again; smoke and mirrors.

      • http://intensedebate.com/people/OntarioTown OntarioTown

        Yup – and what are the media doing this summer, besides making a decision prior to its completion about Ignatieff's tour – falling to Harper's summer wedgie.

        …….sigh

        • Emily

          It's no small matter if he means it.

          We have other major issues as well, but this one also needs attention.

        • burlivespipe

          But what is Harper doing that we should be looking at? Hiring a second psychic, tendering a non-competitive contract for a hockey-book ghost writer? C'mon, i doubt that this is really the tactic. Besides, when one of the opposition clues in, these 'change the national anthem' and 'dumb-down the census' would make great character attack ads, if done with a sense of humour…

  • Anon

    Well, well, well…

    "OTTAWA – While Canada debates the merits of a compulsory long-form census, its neighbours to the south have already decided the idea doesn't work.

    The U.S. Census Bureau conducted an experiment in 2003 with a voluntary version of its usually mandatory American Community Survey."
    http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingn…

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