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

'The prime minister's decision'

by Aaron Wherry on Friday, December 3, 2010 11:05am - 49 Comments

The federal government was preparing last December to deal with the “the prime minister’s decision” to do away with the long-form census.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada: Less reliable data would “compromise their ability” to determine EI eligibility, assess skills development and retraining, and apply the federal-provincial agreement on labour mobility.

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada: “Absence of reliable long-form data will not allow them to effectively manage, evaluate, and measure performance of programs in areas of aboriginal health, housing, education, and economic development.”

Citizenship and Immigration Canada: A broad range of programs dealing with selecting and settling immigrants, including a pan-Canadian agreement on foreign credentials would be hit. “A question in the long form on country of educational attainment specifically provides information to support this program.”

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  • gottabesaid

    While I suppose it's important to expose the scope of the stupidity and wrong-headedness of the census decision, I can't help but be depressed when I read stories like these. Soon, the urge to pound my forehead on my desk will become too powerful to ignore.

    Dumb with a capital D.

  • Emily

    The biggest question of all has never been answered…..and that's…why?

    • Jenn_

      My suspicion is that Harper wants to tell the provinces (or at least certain provinces starting with the letter O) that the transfer payment is half of what the province was expecting because the population rate is down. And when the province asserts that it most assuredly is not down by half, Harper can just say "prove it".

    • Albert

      Emily, haven't you read the talking points on this issue? It's less government coercion! Never mind the fact only like 5 people ever complained about possible jail time, and no one has ever been charged under that provision, it's less government coercion!

      I don't want to tell the government that there are only 2 bathrooms in my house. Who knows what they'll do with that information. And I'm certainly not going to tell them what religion I am (let's ignore that that wasn't even a question on the 2006 long form, I'm still outraged that it could *be* a question).

      /sarcasm

      • Dave

        You are insufficiently outraged! Be outraged that there are questions! Be outraged that there is a government! You can do better!

  • hollinm

    Of course the assumption is that the information that will be obtained will not be sufficient to make the decisions.

    I don't honestly believe that Canadians would stop filling in the form if they were inclined to in the first place because of the change from mandatory to voluntary.

    Do we honestly believe that most Canadians knew the form was mandatory and that it could result in jail time? I suspect either they filled it in because they instinctively knew the information was needed or they did not because they didn't like the detailed questions. Whether they were going to go potentially to jail was not part of their decsion making process.

    I think like the H1N1 hysteria this whole thing is being blown out of proportion.

    However, time will tell.

    • http://myblahg.com Robert McClelland

      I think like the H1N1 hysteria

      Right, concern over a strain of influenza that once killed millions of otherwise healthy people is hysteria.

      • no more non-partisan

        Wikipedia-August 2010: According to the latest World Health Organization statistics, the virus has killed more than 18,000 people since it appeared in April 2009.
        Your numbers say millions. Could you provide more information.

        • Mandatory Jedi

          Why try and reason with an ass-face?

        • Emily

          He was referring to the 1918 Flu epidemic.

        • http://dougsamu.wordpress.com dougrogers

          Reading comprehension and historicity seem lacking here.

          • MostlyCivil

            …not to mention an appreciation of public health. Off to get a glass of tap water. Try that in 80% of the world…

        • Fido

          Perhaps comprehension or its lack is the thing separating right and left.

      • hollinm

        Give me a break. Anybody outside of Canada and in fact some in our country watching the politicians and the media would have thought we were out of our minds. Body bags to reserves, Harper is guilty of killing people. Come on you are smarter than that.

        There is no question there was a severe epidemic threat. Nobody is denying that but as I say the politicians and the media and of course the anti Harper crowd raised the rhetoric to the level of pure silliness.

    • Lee_JD

      I honestly believe a significant portion of the population will not fill out the census if they are not forced to. In particular, lower income people and reservations I think would have a very low number of completed forms; data skewed like this will be very poor and difficult to interpret.

      Any statistics course or textbook will tell you that voluntary surveys are unreliable.

      Canadians may not have realized the form was mandatory but once they didn't fill it out they would have been so informed.

      • hollinm

        Are you suggesting that the only reason Canadians filled out the census form was because they were afraid of going to jail? I don't think so. It has always been a problem having lower income people and aboriginals complete the form even though it was determined to be mandatory. Nothing really has changed. Of course if they didn't fill it out and got a visit that may change their minds. There is no evidence that the government will not pressure those that refuse to fill the form out now even though it is not considered mandatory.

        By the way the form really wasn't mandatory because nobody has ever gone to jail for not filling it out. Is that really how to treat Canadians about filling in a form? Threatening them with jail time? I suspect we will agree to disagree.

        I still say this is a tempest in a teapot. Do I think this is a change the government should have made? No there are many more priorities. It has turned into a massive distraction.

        However, if the Libs ever get back into power they can make the census mandatory once again and that I am sure will solve all the problems that face Canada.

    • MostlyCivil

      "… the form was mandatory and that it could result in jail time?"

      It could also result in
      a- spontaneous combustion
      b – Leafs winning the Cup and,
      c – The abrupt Cancellation of Glee.

      Like Jail, these are all hypothetical outcomes in that they have never happened.

    • Matlock

      "I don't honestly believe that Canadians would stop filling in the form if they were inclined to in the first place because of the change from mandatory to voluntary."

      Common sense might suggest so. But as Albert Einstein once said, "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

      What we have learned empirically comes to us from the pilot project the United States conducted in 2003 where they replaced their mandatory census with a voluntary one:
      http://www.nationalpost.com/Voluntary+version+cen…

      They observed a "dramatic decrease" in response rates. Even more worrisome though, response rates varied considerably between white households (43%) vs black (22%) vs latino households (20%).

      The Harper government's move to a voluntary LF census will create garbage data at a cost of $30 million more than if the LF census was mandatory. It will paint a skewed picture of Canadian society, and will lead to poorly executed social programs. The neo-con faithful on this site are kidding themselves if they think this will lead to less social spending… it will just lead to poorly targeted social spending – example: the Harper government has not stated any plans to cancel the three programs listed above.

      As I've said before on this site, the only two defensible policy options are:
      1) conduct a mandatory LF census; or
      2) eliminate the long form all together, and reap the cost savings.

      The government has done neither, and instead opted to create something unreliable at higher cost.

      To put it in plain language… it ain't worth doin' if it ain't worth doin' right.

      • hollinm

        Then lets do what other countries have done and simply cancel the census all together. After all you guys that are against changing from mandatory to voluntary think the information will be useless so lets just cancel the whole thing. Those people who don't like/want to fill out the census will be the same before or after changing the form.

        If there is a boycott of the census because people don't like the change then that invites the government to simply cancel it and use the existing information in their already ubiquitous systems.

    • Hedges

      Of course the assumption is that the information that will be obtained will not be sufficient to make the decisions.

      Assumption?

      • hollinm

        The fact is those that completed the form will be the same people who will complete it after the change. They know the information is used by various agencies/departments of the government and others.

        Those that did not like the long form and the usual groups who did not fill them out not because they didn't like them but couldn't be bothered will be the same. Once again unless something is tried we will not know the impact. However, there are always those that feel the status quo is the only answer and nothing must be changed.

        • Matlock

          "The fact is those that completed the form will be the same people who will complete it after the change."

          I demonstrated above this is incorrect. The U.S. pilot project proved this.

          "Once again unless something is tried we will not know the impact."

          It already WAS tried. The U.S. pilot project demonstrated it would create horribly skewed data at much greater cost.

          You posted this mere seconds after reading my above post and not refuting the proof I presented. What, do your opinions change based on who's doing the arguing? Flimsy. Almost…. Iffy.

          Ironic.

          • hollinm

            Of course because it failed in the United States it follows that it will fail in Canada.

            By the way I was replying to hedges. I hadn't read your comments.

          • Matlock

            "By the way I was replying to hedges. I hadn't read your comments."

            Bull. Your IntenseDebate profile shows you responded to my comment before you responded to Hedges.

  • Mandatory Jedi

    Hurray!

    The Census Strikes Back!

    How will the governemnt function without knowing that a real life Jedi is making a healthly living of 20,000 galactic credits on a moisture farm with 36 toilets in downtown Toronto!

    • LdKitchenersOwn

      Oh God, not the non-existent toilet question meme again.

      • Mandatory Jedi

        I just like bragging about how many I have.

        If you're short a few I can always send you a couple of my Flush Droids.

    • Fido

      In the absence of reliable data — beware the Death Star Luke !

      • Mandatory Jedi

        I'm more concerned with not having an accurate count on the Tusken Raider population in Toronto.

        I don't trust them to honestly fill out a voluntary census.

    • PeterboroDave

      Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to membership in the Conservative Party of Canada. A Jedi seeks not these things!

      • Mandatory Jedi

        The Dark side thrives in the ranks of extremists, regardless of political leanings.

        I sense much anger in you Pete.

        • PeterboroDave

          Aw no. It's been a while since you posted- I was waiting weeks to use that line. ;)

      • danby

        Duplicitous and deceitful scheming from the straight shooting, "transparent" PM – pushed through by his obsequious toady Tony Clement.

        There. I said it

        • Mike T.

          hee hee – Toady Clement!

          • guest

            har. you liberals are so witty.

        • guest

          good thing you're here to say things like this. we wouldn't want macleans to be filled exclusively with praise for harper and clement.

          what a courageous rebel you are. a true free spirit. a fish swimming against the current.

        • hollinm

          Now I am sure you feel much better.

  • A_logician

    One gets the feeling that infuriating the civil service may have been one of the goals of the decision to replace the mandatory long form. Thus the response would have reinforced the decision.

    At any rate, facts are of no consequence when you already know the revealed truth.

    • Mike T.

      I wonder if perhaps it was an attempt at forcing an election – something small, maybe a little difficult for they busy man on the street to fully wrap their head around at first glance, but utterly indefensible.

      It doesn't really fit – but nothing else does either.

  • Passing by

    I predict there will be refusal campaigns by groups who support the census and would prefer no data to bad data. Both the long and short form surveys have been largely rendered impossible by the irresponsibility of the government.

    I wish the opposition would ask that the government to just cancel the 2011 survey so it can be done properly after a new government takes power. A new government could mount a campaign to restore confidence in StatsCan and the census. Proceeding with the survey next spring as though all is well will be a waste of money because it will result in unreliable (i.e. useless) data.

  • Mike T.

    Anybody managed to come up with a more pointless federal initiative yet?

  • Phil_King

    Give them time Mike. Give them time. LOL

  • canon70

    Changing the words of O Canada would have won, except it was the Tim Horton's crowd that objected not the Toronto elite.

  • sourstud

    How about signing up for the Kyoto protocol?

  • tobyornotoby

    Yeah, Mike, ease up on the expectations, eh? As you can see these kinds of decisions are almost a year in the making. This isn't some backwater where you can just go ahead and make stupid decisions spontaneously, this is a G8 country, man! Our leaders need to know exactly why the decision is stupid before they go ahead with it.

  • Mike T.

    It's actually a challenge to MacLeans readers to find a federal policy more silly and pointless than the census. There have been some attempts but nothing that really gets to the same level of having no real purpose, being harmful to the actual purpose, being defended by arguments which are wholly incredible and obviously not believed by those saying them.

    usually the discussion veers into policies that people don't like, or that had overarching goals that a reader disagrees with or were genuinely distasteful, rather than focusing on the ridiculousness aspect.

  • MostlyCivil

    "It's actually a challenge to MacLeans readers to find a federal policy more silly and pointless than the census."

    Harder still if you eliminate Minister Clement from the running…

  • Mike T.

    sigh,,,, QED.

  • Mike T.

    That is probably the best entry so far. Interesting it was also by the Harper government. Looses points for never being initiated, though – if only they'd done the same with the Census.

    Ultimately ess harm would have been done and less expense would have been created by changing the anthem. And the ultimate goal (either trying to appeal to perceived progressive types, or a genuine desire to bring a sense of equality to the national anthem) is readily discernible. So I think the census pulls ahead after careful consideration.

    I thank you for your entry.

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