C'mon, comparing the government to the Taliban is unwarranted hyperbole. But there is a clear intent to appeal to base feelings, regardless of whether that makes any scientific sense. Hearing the governments responses such as claiming that the non-obligatory long form going out to more people will effectively substitute for the mandatory short form, clearly indicates a complete lack of understanding of statistical principles such as random sampling, representation and avoidance of bias, never mind loss of continuity with prior data collection. It's both ignorant and anti-intellectual. There was a guy (Tim Powers) from a Conservative policy group on CBC radio One this morning claiming that 49% of Canadians are against the mandatory census long form. What is the question they were asked? Do people understand what the information s used for, that it is de-identified and used in aggregate? Are we to dumb down our intelligence such that we make decisions based on gut feelings? The government made a dumb move that will weaken our ability to plan society and they did it for selfish reasons – it is certainly not in the national interest.