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

Freedom from tyranny

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 4:04pm - 0 Comments

Conservative backbencher Stephen Woodworth has a question.

Re long census,regardless of assurances of privacy, should we really force people to tell us whether they’re gay?

Mr. Woodworth is perhaps referring to a question on the 2006 long-form census that asks respondents to acknowledge a “same-sex common law partner” relationship. The long-form census has, of course, since been converted to a voluntary survey. But the short-form census remains mandatory. And among the questions approved by Mr. Woodworth’s government for that mandatory short-form census is one that asks respondents to indicate whether individuals within a given household include a “same-sex married spouse” or “same-sex common law partner.”

Tags: census, long-form census, National Household Survey, Stephen Woodworth

More by Aaron Wherry

Mike T.

Any legitimate concerns in this area are met by the anonymizing of the individual responses.

Mike T.

And yes, his ignorance or his duplicity is staggering.

burlivespipe

Freedom from the tyranny of this moronic government, give me!

Emily

And thus begins the move to having no census at all.
Jenn_

How embarrassing. Is there a reason the Conservatives want to keep alive the long-form census controversy? Is Woodworth trying for another round of donations? Are my neighbours this stupid that they don't know the living arrangement question is on the short-form?

burlivespipe

Distraction, i'm guessing. Don't think about sheila fraser, don't think about reno-gate, don't think about Harper knowing about the invasion of privacy and private slander being done to some Gulf War vet THREE YEARS ago… So many things, keep your eye on the ball under the cup…

Geiseric

Re long census,regardless of assurances of privacy, should we really force people to not tell us whether they’re gay and force ourselves to pretend they aren't there?
Amateur Hour

Sadly, he's a ignorant and duplicitous as the front-bencher on this file.
John D

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he is genuinely concerned about this. As a member of the government caucus why did he not raise this with the Minister when the questions were being approved?

burlivespipe

He may have sent a thousand emails on this a handful of years ago for all we know…

Jan

And they were ignored and delated like the others. Conservatives – the insensitive government. God knows they ignore my emails…

Stewart_Smith

From a speech, the earnest MP gave to his local Muslim community with the noble intent of educating them about themselves.

"You may recall that there were no Canadian citizens prior to 1947, when Canada became the first Commonwealth country to gain its own citizenship legislation. The 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act provided a framework for other members of the Commonwealth to develop their own citizenship legislation. Before 1947, Canadians were considered British subjects living in Canada.

Prime Minister Mackenzie King became the first Canadian citizen by taking the oath at the first citizenship ceremony, which was held on January 3, 1947, at the Supreme Court, in Ottawa.

Interestingly, this was 9 years after the first mosque was built in Canada. Do any of you know where that was? (depending on answer) Yes, in Edmonton, Alberta the Al-Rashid Mosque was dedicated in 1938 but that was not when the first Muslims came to Canada. The census of 1871 recorded 13 Muslim residents. That was a mere 14 years after confederation."

Stewart_Smith

Q. Does anyone know what Woodworth sounds like?…. I keep getting a kinda creepy Mr. Rogers voice in my head when I read his stuff.

Jan

I've never even heard of him – he's one of the silent Con majority. Until now.
Patchouli

Well, he's no James Beavan, but also a youtube star: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wVRw4BbPsc

Jan

And he's a lawyer? Wow.

tedbetts

The census tells us that, eh? Interesting. Doubly, trebly, quadruply interesting.

Orson Bean

I wasn't arguing that it was the same. I'm just saying that it was also stupid. Among military experts, it's widely believed to be the stupidest decision in the history of Canadian military procurement.

And it wasn't an expense that was saved. It was an expense that was put off until later, and when you factor in the lawsuits and huge contractual penalties that we paid, there was no saving at all. We lost money, big time.

Mike T.

Still, poison pills by the previous government can't be in the same category as gutting an effective program then spending more to make it weaker.

Orson Bean

I will repeat: I was not arguing that the EH-101 decision was necessarily stupider than the census decision. I was merely making the point that it was really, really stupid.

Where the two decisions respectively rate on the stupid meter, I'll leave that to you.

Mike T.

And I am saying it can't even be put in the same category. The helicopter bit is in the "can be criticized on some grounds" category, along with many many other things.

Emily

No, the Avro Arrow was.

Orson Bean

Apples and oranges. The Avro Arrow went to the meta-issue of whether Canada was going to have a fighter-plane building capability. There's still a legitimate debate that goes on about that among military historians, e.g., whether it really would have made sense for us to pour money and resources at such a program.

The EH-101 went to replacing necessary equipment to enable our men and women in uniform to do their jobs — without unnecessarily dying.

Emily

You said: 'Among military experts, it's widely believed to be the stupidest decision in the history of Canadian military procurement.'

And I said no, that was the Avro Arrow

I agree about the choppers though….bad decision…but you know, 'voters are never wrong'.

tedbetts

Conservatives: the left hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

Halo_Override

Damned lefties. So sinister.

RayK

In addition to the fact that the Census is not only private, but anonomized, I would respond to that question with three of my own:

1) If it's so bad, why not just get rid of that one question?

2) Has anyone ever been fined for refusing to answer a single question rather than just refusing to fill out the form? (Same goes for all the Cons points of this form.)

3) If you have a "common law spouse" of either sex doesn't "the government" already know that from your tax filings–I mean, unless you're lying on your taxes–and is that really the same as whether you're gay?
BCer in Mtl

Since you have 200 characters in your post, I'm giving you a plus.

But, say, someone twitters "We should do what **** would have done!" or "I agree that **** had the right approach on minorities" . . . what then?

(**** insert name of the infamous historical figure of your choice, I don't want to get in any Godwin-type trouble)

MostlyCivil

Chances are, somebody dumb enough to drop that name on Twitter wouldn't restrict the stupid to just one single communication device.

Canuck237503

It's always fun when some conservative pretends to be concerned about the welfare of us gay people. I mean, kids getting bullied in schools doesn't really worry them, they weren't too concerned about letting us get married, but WOAH, asking us to self-identify in an anonymous census form, ZOMG THE HEIGHT OF TYRANNY AND OPPRESSION!!1!!!

I don't particularly recall any gay organizations–i.e. the ones who are actually paid to look out for our interests–raising any fuss over this question.

Jan

Exactly. They do the same with women's rights. I laugh track is called for when they do this.
Mike T.

They are at their best when trying to adopt the rhetoric of what would be, in America, "progressives".

Like when they feign concern over the rights of women in Afghanistan, or say that discussions of American foreign policy on terrorist activities are "blaming the victim".

MostlyCivil

Say it it loud, they're enumerated, and they're proud!

Guest

Aaron: A retired assistant chief statistician comments on the futility of the national household survey… http://thenorthernharrier.blogspot.com/2010/10/cl…
Mike T.

I've asked before and will ask again: can anybody find, in the history of Federal government an instance of comparable dumbness as this census stuff? There have been ineffective programs, unpopular or ideological programs, but as far as I can tell this takes the cake for stupidity.
Claudia Lemire

I am with you !!
Orson Bean

I agree that this decision was mega-stupid.

If I had to nominate another government decision, though, it would be the cancellation of the EH-101 helicopter contract back in the 1990s. Which was entirely a political decision. And it cost us multiple millions in penalties and lawsuits. And it put Canadian miltary personnel in danger. Just an awful decision. But good politics at the time.

That's the thing about the census decision, though — I don't think it was even good politics. So it's always been a head-scratcher for me.
Poker Face

Yes.

Sponsorship Scandal. National Energy Program. Rahim Jaffer. Avro Arrow cancellation. GST reduction (x2). The War Measures Act… the list goes on, Mike.

Keep in mind we ARE talking about [i]government[/i].
Poker Face

I'll never figure out how to italicize….
Mike T.

but those things had reasons even if people disagreed with the reasons. The census thing is more like senseless vandalism of the work of government.
Orson Bean

It's how the lonely site administrators amuse themselves around here. Watching posters attempt to italicize . . .
Halo_Override

Replace [ and ] with < and >, and you're off the the races!