I don't trust my guts. What say you to just putting the possible answers on a dartboard?

So you're saying this is all your fault?

Oh those pesky time stamps…always getting in the way of perfectly cromulent lies. :)

(see Mr Moffat told us who he voted for AFTER your initial comment ;)

Or at very least without the permission of the majority of Parliament.

Wow.. you are desperately defensive today aren't you? I mean, usually your attempts at changing the topic are pretty obvious, but I think this one is the most blatant I've seen. It used to be I thought you were just addled.. but now I"m starting to think troll.

Now!?!?!?

Consistent in quality, but with a wildly oscillating set of details. That inclines me toward malice rather than ignorance.

No – it does not. Neither I personally nor has my company ever purchased or used long-form census data.

Mike, you may as well fess up. You live in a city that was planned with the help of census data. You went to school at a University that regularly makes use of the census data. You do business with companies, many of which access the census data to assist in their businesses. You have probably sought medical care at a hospital or clinic that was resourced using census data. You really like perogies and sourced where to find them WITH THE HELP OF CENSUS DATA!

I'm afraid that I can no longer support your argument. Any person who does not like perogies clearly doesn't have a leg to stand on.

That explains why you stuck with the Cons through the perogiment crisis.

I would like to personally thank Charles H. for his assistance on that one.

He spends time in Canada, if that's what you mean.

Yeah, there are people just waiting for the opportunity to divulge to everybody what 'wilson' from the internets real name is, and how much she makes a year!

You'll be happy to know there's no Stats Can file connecting your name to any data.

Are you now, or have you ever been a user of statistics?

Not my list.. Aaron's list :) Send him a message or a tweet.

Are you implying the Government builds churches? If so, are Pagan's less deserving of one than people of another faith?

accountability??? what…. is this…… ac-count-a-bil-it-y that you speak of?

You are on fire today, sir.

"This data is crucial to the measurement and management of government programs"

Data on income levels, ethnicity, religion & education is crucial to holding the various levels of government to account? I think you're overstepping a litte quite a lot.

Well thanks so much for your thoughtful interjection.

Since you're here perhaps you can explain how gov't programs rely on accurate long form census data, which is, after all, what we're discussing.

BTW – I didn't imply there's a problem with TJ's argument, I simply disagree with it. There's a difference there.

I ran across an interesting one last night. The government of Nunavut has come out against dropping the mandatory long form. It uses the number of bedrooms info to measure crowding and
address housing issues. In googling on the subject I ran into the problem of early and acute tooth decay amongst the children of Nunavut. And it's blamed on overcrowding – children's soothers dipped in honey, juice in sippy cups etc. to quiet fussy children. So, you see there are useful things to be gained even if we don't understand the point of questions.

You're right, I shouldn't have said I disagree with it, I should have said instead that I think it's true as an ideal but not really applicable to our situation. In fact, I think I did say that in another response but I could be mistaken about that.

I say, categorically, that without good, empirical data we will be at the mercy of every snake oil salesman who's able to gin up a crowd.

Yes, but data on what? I think I've stated quite a few times that good empirical data is the best of all possible things. I'm just trying to make the argument that much of the long-form data – regardless of the fact that it's good data – is not relevant data necessary for the effective operations of government.

Hah!

I made the exact same reference in my initial replay and then deleted it as being too obscure and liable to detract from whatever serious point I was making at the time. My jokes seem to land with a thud around here. Good on ya!

You were speaking in the general sense – 'policy decisions are based on politics' and I replied in the general sense – 'good data helps mitigate that.'

Before you change gears and ask me to defend a bunch of specific examples, do you disagree with what I said?

I completely agree with that. Good governance would ignore those factors and treat all citizens as equals. Equal treatment doesn't have to be identical treatment, though.

The government has said it wants to encourage a specific community to discuss Canadian values and how honour killings don't fit in with them. It seems reasonable that knowing where, and in what numbers, this community lived would be necessary to get the discussion started. It would be ridiculous to have this discussion with all Canadians just so that we are all treated equally.

Exactly what I meant to say :)

Ok, so in practice are you arguing that the long form should be reduced or eliminated?

You keep talking about religion and ethnicity – is that your only issue, or are you saying (in a roundabout way) that the long form should be scrapped altogether?

Fair enough – maybe the first step is a question-by-question review of the long form. Any question whose utility fails to meet some basic criteria is stricken. After that, the question of execution (everybody vs. a sample) should be a matter of cost vs. benefit.

Even at that, I'm reluctant – there's historical value in showing the change in Canada's makeup over time. We can't know now how all this data will be useful. Given StatsCan's stellar record in maintaining privacy, I think there's little good reason to reduce the data collected based on uses we can currently forsee.

Anway, I agree that "Clement's" (Harper's) so-called solution is the worst possible. Don't forget, on top of everything else, it costs much, much more.

Love the monorail references :)

This is who is running our country, folks!

You only wish.

"You don't need sound data to be efficient?!?"

You can cut and paste a two word quotation but apparently can neither understand it, nor remember it correctly. Good luck with all that.

So, if I understand your train of thought correctly, by saying there's no need to gather cultural background information beyond the point of just being "Canadian", you in no way intended to imply only ones "Canadian" culture is important. That does qualify as being a non sequitur.

If the argument, as most political arguments are, assumes an electorate as it can reasonably be expected to be, then yes, it actually is a problem with the argument. If you were merely suggesting (for no good reason whatsoever) that your argument would be compelling in a utopian society, I agree. But if you mean your argument to apply to Canada as it currently is, then I don't.

And the conclusion 'act A should be illegal' isn't based on the premise 'because if you make it illegal, it won't happen any more'. Maybe if you spelled out your arguments as syllogisms, you'd tumble into fewer pitfalls with a resounding *thud*.

It's a moot point regardless, as the Government is still going to do the long form census – it'll just cost 30 million dollars more, and return data that's basically worthless.

Yeah, I know. I think it's a stupid, indefensible position. They should have either eliminated the long-form entirely or left it alone. I'm a little surprised that I've found myself on the eliminate it side of the debate, to be honest. But I've been discussing this here for a couple of weeks now and my position has hardened as I go… I don't see the need for the long-form data and I think it should be eliminated. The fact that a lot of government agencies want the data is not strong enough justification, IMO. I think they should be made to prove their cases.