Categories: Blog Central, Feschuk on the famous

The Drowning of Tony Clement’s Credibility

Spare a thought for the minister in charge of Statistics Canada—or, as it will soon be known, Vague Hunches Canada

by Scott Feschuk on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 6:42am - 0 Comments

Let us pause now and spare a thought for poor Tony Clement. The minister in charge of Statistics Canada – or, as it will soon be known, Vague Hunches Canada – is not that different from you or me. He has a job. He likes his job. He wants to keep his job.

But to keep his job, Tony Clement must now wake up each morning, walk out into the world and say things that make him sound like a wet-lipped halfwit.

In defending the government’s changes to the census, Tony Clement must:

a) …repeatedly say and pretend to believe things that only the profoundly uneducated and our least savvy domestic pets could accept to be true.

Clement: A greater sample size in the long form will make up for the absence of a mandatory component.

My dog: Ruf!

Clement: I sense Senate material!

/ Dog licks self.

Clement: I sense Senate material!

b) …perpetuate a campaign of fear-mongering that even the most dedicated mongers of fear would hesitate to monger: Defenceless grandmothers receive the long form and get a’scared that they will be going to jail! PEOPLE OF CANADA: THE LIBERALS AND NDP ARE FIXIN’ TO SEND YOUR GRANDMAMAS TO JAIL!!!!!!!

(Alas, Clement was ultimately outmongered by Stockwell Day, who in a typically classy move picked out a tasteful Nazi theme and darkly inquired if it’s right that the government can ask your neighbour “whether she is a Jew or not? Don’t you find that one even a little bit chilling?” Honest answer: Not as chilling as the prospect of a foreign guest discovering we’ve handed control of government spending to a guy who believes man and triceratops co-existed.)

c) … make that nice Munir Sheikh fellow cry. Poor Munir Sheikh: He devoted his professional life to statistics and now must endure the sight of Slick Tony Clement fondling the number nine, tongue-kissing the number seven and paying for plastic surgery to turn that frumpy number six into a full-figured eight.

I ask you: Is there no one among us brave enough to leap into the water, swim out, swim back and ultimately leave it to a much older man to rescue Tony Clement’s credibility?

More by Scott Feschuk

http://twitter.com/knoxkp @knoxkp

Stockwell day does indeed take the fearmongering cake – "Who's a Joooooo? Whoooo's a Jooooo?"

"Eeeek! The census people are nazis!"

They are going to try and turn us into the same ignorant rabble we see south of the border and we should not allow it to happen.

The 30% (or so) of Canadians who support these ignorant ideologues ought to have their heads examined.
O'Neill

I think Scott should bring back his Kirsti Alley fat jokes because this article is just plain unfunny .

http://intensedebate.com/people/DerekPearce DerekPearce

You should get your funny bone looked at, it might be fractured.

O'Neill

Some people consider Corner Gas and Dan for Mayor funny.Are you part of that group as well.

RDB

Don't encourage him.

knick

Sadly, given Clement's credibility, I wonder if there is any verification of his version of events at the river.
Ariadne

And you call this journalism. It reads more like a little girl having a nasty fit.

http://intensedebate.com/people/SeanStok Sean

An *elite* little girl, if you don't mind.
officerfarva

And you call this commenting, it reads more like a little Con trying to be clever.

Ariadne

Sorry to disappoint you little guy, but I have no appetite to be a member of any party.

officerfarva

Nor clever.

Ariadne

Thank you! Coming from you, I consider that a vast improvement.
Holly Stick

So you're a non-partisan wet-lipped half-wit?
JamesHalifax

Holly asked:
"So you're a non-partisan wet-lipped half-wit? "

Well, Holly, it beats the alternative. Would you prefer he take a page from your book and become a humourless hyper-partisan Liberal who spends most of their day drooling over non-events you perceive to provide some semblance of positive coverage for the Russian nobleman?
Jan

JamesHalifax accusing someone of being a humourless hyper-partisan – now that is funny.
Ariadne

I think anyone who does not agree with you is a wet-lipped half-wit in your book, and I will gladly carry that badge with pride, thank you! Must be a burden to have such a big head.

Patchouli

perfect response.

http://intensedebate.com/profiles/rodcros rodcros

That is quite wicked, if a little unkind to the wet-lipped half-wits among us.

To add to the mix if I may, here's a piece on the Backwoods influence on King Stephen's Court and Sun Media. http://rodcroskery.wordpress.com
Ariadne

Picture Clement in Dominatrix costume, with some willing Canadians kneeling down before him. Everytime he raises his whip for Canadian to fill out the census form, people cried Alleluhja! Mandatory census anyone!

http://intensedebate.com/people/McC_ McC_

"Picture …"
why on earth would I want to do that?!
http://intensedebate.com/people/DerekPearce DerekPearce

Really, Ariadne, there are websites out there for this kind of thing. Macleans isn't one of them. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
Jan

I can't picture it because Clement is so obviously a submissive.

Merle H

Census change is about smaller government.

A GOOD idea unless your lunch ticket is the taxpayer's dollar.

Canada should be a country of individual initiative, not one of collective dependence “justified” through the collection of data for a daily bombardment of cooked-up statistical justifications of predetermined conclusions for the benefit of well co-ordinated activist/advocacy campaigns.

Ultimately, Canadians form two groups: those that receive from the government and those that pay to the government.
Those who form — or are constituent to — organizations dependent on government policy (and spending) are firmly against the changes to the census.
Those on the other side are largely ambivalent because they are the large, unorganized and unsubsidized net taxpaying masses.

All the rest is partisan political posturing by a leftish MSM and a discredited and idea-less liberal party who, like Dickens' Miss Havisham, is trapped in her decaying mansion, fixated on the past, where nothing ever changes and the clock stopped 30 or 40 years ago.

Ariadne

Hear, hear!

Holly Stick

Brought to you by the same people who appoint creationists and orther ignoramuses to cabinet. They haven't evolved to the level of having clocks yet.

Ariadne

Wow! A self proclaimed " intelligencia" who is willing to blindedly hand a signed privacy blank cheque without knowing the details. Yeah, If that's what it means to be intelligent, you are very welcome to it.
Jan

There are dinosaurs amongst us.

http://intensedebate.com/people/DerekPearce DerekPearce

Yup, saving that ole taxpayer dollar sure makes sense when it's going to cost an extra 30 million now.
linlal

So you receive nothing from the government and are only a payer of taxes?

Does this mean you don't drive on highways, get defended by the military, use medical services, fly on air-traffic-controlled planes or otherwise use any services paid for by government? Does your non-use of government services extend to provincial and municipal services like traffic lights, purified water, public transit, schools, parks and sewers or is it restricted to federal services?

Does this include all the bridges which have been repaired under the stimulus program – or will you cross them when you come to them?

Just out of curiosity, where do you place members of Canada's military? Are they members of "organizations dependent on government policy (and spending)" or are they part of the "unorganized and unsubsidized net taxpaying masses"? Certainly, you will agree their "lunch ticket is the taxpayer's dollar". What about members of the medical profession?
ahm

Even a stopped clock tells the right time, twice a day. Unlike the results of the census long form, now.

bonneau

There was a Conservative named Tony,
All that he said was baloney,
He’s downplayed the census,
He’s lost all his senses,
That phony baloney named Tony.

James Connors

A lost art form.

Thanks.
RDB

Get a last line that adds a final wicked punch, rather than just repeating what you've said before, and you'll have yourself a real winner.

linlal

It's a limerick – it's supposed to repeat in the last line!

bonneau

How about this as an ending, "That phony Harper crony named Tony."

Ariadne

What will happen if it's Harper's actual plan to make this long form mandatory and way longer, but knowing the penchant of the opposition to automatically oppose anything without thinking, he pre-empt them by taking the opposite side and let them do the defending of his actual plan? Quite genius! Now we are stuck with longer census and with more invasive questions. Of all the howling from self declared "highly thinking" people, none ever ask what questions are in the future census, and how long is actually long? Morons!

Holly Stick

Harper's Conservatives have a CIMS database;

"…Garth Turner, a former Tory Member of Parliament who now sits as a Liberal, has now said that when he sat as a Tory, Conservatives were required to use the system to not only track a constituent's allegiance to the party, but also to collect personal information about constituents that might come to light when the constituent contacted the parliamentarian.
"Any time a constituent is engaged with a member of Parliament, they get zapped into the database," Turner said. "It's unethical and it's a shocking misuse of data."…"
http://www.thetelegram.com/Editorial/2007-10-20/a…

No doubt every Conbot pontificating about pricacy here is already fully exposed on the Conservatives' private database. It's just that Harper doesn't want anyone else to have such information.

RDB

Garth is worse than a partisan hack – he's just a self-absorbed hack who thinks everything who he has to say is important. I think he actually believes the stuff he makes up.

Ariadne

I once attended a seminar where Garth was a speaker, it was about RRSP Investing. Had I listened to him, I would have lost an arm and a leg. To use him as a fountain of truth and reference, from self proclaimed above us the common masses in intelligence, is just so laughable.

Jan

Adriadne – are you suggesting Harper has a very sinister hidden agenda? I know your anti-thinking but you may want to give it a try.

stayinschool

This is the worst article of an author's rant…just as bad as he claims his subject is.
LMulholland

Time for Minister Clement to feel the love…

Thankfully, there’s still more than one way to be counted in this country. If you’re opposed to the Harper government’s move to abolish the mandatory long form census, it’s time to do something concrete about it:

1.Contact the opposition riding association of your choice in Minister Clement’s riding of Parry Sound – Muskoka and make a donation and/or volunteer for the next federal election campaign. Websites below:

Parry Sound – Muskoka Federal Liberal Association http://psmfla.ca/

Parry Sound – Muskoka NDP Riding Association http://ndpparrysoundmuskoka.ca/

Parry Sound – Muskoka Green Party http://www.psmgreenparty.ca/

2.Send an email message to Minister Clement’s riding association (http://conservativeparrysoundmuskoka.com/contact.html ) expressing your opposition to the government’s decision to abolish the mandatory long form census, and telling them that you are donating funds and/or your time to help ensure Minister Clement does not return to Ottawa.

Maybe they can talk some sense into him…

Ariadne

Now the true reasons for the howling comes about. What an oily sneaky opportunist. Oh how we will remember those sites and parties, believe me..

Bob

If I remember correctly Clement, Baird and Flaherty were all members of the Mike Harris A team and now are the bright lights of Team Harper–and they still lead in the polls? Astounding I say! Another great column Scott!
one more guest

Funny as a fight over stats may be, the truly frightening thing is the fact that Clement, Day and other Harper friends are running the government and changing the way we live. What I want to know is who the heck keeps voting for these people?
Ambow

Another bloody Liberal or possibly even farther off the scale …rant.
The long census form is invasive , asks questions that are totally delving into areas of privacy.
The Government neither needs or wants this information.
I for 1 say BRAVO for having the balls to omit the long form as mandatory for those unfortunate enough to have been chosen to complete it.
Phil King

What I don't understand is why Tony didn't just walk on water to save the poor woman.

That's gotta be easier than defending the voluntary long form. LOL
Phil King

Merle H: "Census change is about smaller government. "

No, it's about obfuscatig the facts so people can't compare this government's performance to previous governments.

The last census was 2006.

The CPC took power in 2006, so this census would be ammo in the opposition's pocket.

The Auditor General's report on the stimulus spending is just around the corner.

I wonder how they'll dodge that? LOL
Marushka

Tony Clement keeps referring to questions that are NOT on the census, but on the Survey of Household Spending, which is voluntary.
The long form census questions are not invasive –all personal information is stripped.
Last census, each person counted in BC meant a transfer payment from the federal government of $1200/year for 5 years, while every person counted in the Yukon meant a transfer payment of $23,000/year for 5 years. If people knew how important census information is to them personally, they would be more than willing to fill in the long form census.
Aboriginals fill out the Aboriginal People's Survey (again, voluntary) knowing that their responses are likely to get them additional monies.
If all Canadians knew why they should be filling out the census (i.e. for their own good), there would be little resistance to the long form. There will always be unwilling persons … fine them $100 don't waste money prosecuting. There are few things that are mandatory for Canadian citizens to do … surely, answering 52 questions isn't too much to ask.
Memi

I resent your crude socialist attack on Mr. Clement, the only Canadian minister capable of saving drowning victims from the unmitigated outrage of having to fill out The Stat Form (a well-known Communist plot promoted by both Stalin and Jack Layton!). Surely you have better things to do with your time, Scott, than to cast doubt on the competence of a man who cares more about his constituents (in dollar figures) than any other minister in our blessed government. Is YOUR MP spending millions to build portable toilets, streams, rivers, and auditoriums in your miserable socialist riding, eh?

And as for your insulting Mr. Day, why, Sotckwell never claimed that man walked with triceratops. God forbid! But he was indeed sighted there on the Hill, by some Amway representatives, walking with other Neanderthals from his own cabinet. Honest, Scott!
Pierre Ontario

Well actually, if I recall from my stats training, volunteers tend to tell more on surveys than those who are filling it out as a "must do" to avoid whatever… So, technically "A greater sample size in the long form will make up for the absence of a mandatory component."

A POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Simply give everyone the same form, and allow all questions to be optional. Then when they go back, key in what you get.

But all of this hoolaballah leaves out some interesting questions:

1) Do we even need a census?
2) Assuming we need one, exactly what questions need to be asked?
3) When would be best to ask them?
4) How often?
5) Should we allow people to opt out for moral, religious, cultural, or philosophical reasons?
6) If we do not allow people to opt out of answering, wouldn't it just be simpler to use the death penalty on these people? Then we would not have to waste any more resources on them. That would guarantee answers, no?
7) Who should ask the questions, and what authority should they have?
8) Who should get the answers, and what should we do with them?
9) Do we actually use or need any of the theoretical information generated, which in itself, due to the way we do it now, is still a mere approximation of the whole?
10) How do we know that any of the information gathered is accurate?

There are other questions, but for this kind of essay and thinking, I have to be paid.
When Macleans sends its good cheque, I guarantee that I will produce an essay even better than such a one that either Feschuck, or Amiel could produce, either alone, or working together…..
Margaret

That is such a good column. I might just print it, and frame it.

We need more people to be that savage in the media and in the HoC. Canada lies upon the sacrificial altar, tied up like a goat.

Who knows, Harper and Day just might see it that way – sacrificing the old Canada for the New Canada. Don't they call themselves The New Canadian Government?

They're definitely cutting Canada's throat right now, and the rest of the country seems either powerless or indifferent. Makes me wonder what was the point of my father joining the Navy at 18 and going to war for. Apparently, it meant nothing.
jet

do you really mean that comment about the navy? that seems a little strong comparing fighting murderous nazis to statistics issues (wait, you stole that from toews)