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

For the good of the country, won't you please submit to Tony Clement's personal and intrusive questions?

by Aaron Wherry on Friday, January 21, 2011 4:09pm - 34 Comments

Tony Clement appeals for your help.

“I am pleased that Ms. Finley did not receive a formal sentence. It’s our government’s position that there are other ways to collect useful and usable data than by threatening Canadians with jail time,” Mr. Clement said in a statement. “That is why we will be introducing legislation to eliminate such threats.”

“However, completing the census is important for data purposes so I do encourage Canadians to comply and to participate in the National Household Survey in the coming months.”

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  • tedbetts

    I hope the Conservatives have a good chiropractor on staff (along with Harper's full-time professional primper and psychic) for all the twisting and turning and controting and spinning and convoluted positioning they take every day.

    • Jenn_

      Good news, Ted Betts! Gary Goodyear, the science minister, is a chiropractor!

      • BCer in Mtl

        And an expert in evolution too!

  • gottabesaid

    In defending the decision to make the long-form census voluntary, Clement and Co. did an admirable job of destroying the credibility of the exercise (like citing false questions, overblowing the 'Jedi' responses, etc). And, of course, since the response rate will be (at the very best) 65 per cent, the usefulness of the data at the end of the day will be poor. So… you want us to choose to participate in an exercise you have gone out of your way to ridicule, and you have gone out of your way to invalidate? Yeah, Tony, I'll get right on that.

    • brooster2

      And the degraded data we harvest from the voluntary exercise will only cost us an extra 30 mill.

      • EvInOz

        I know if I get one of these forms, I'm not going to bother participating in this farce.

        • BCer in Mtl

          If we get them, can we stuff them in an envelope and mail to Tony Clement free of charge?

        • EeeOar

          Same here, unless, of course, they offer me the choice of 500 Aeroplan miles or a chance to win $5000.

          • EeeOar

            OK, so Aeroplan isn't all that popular I see.

          • Jan

            I want a week at the Deerhurst Resort. I hear it's nice in early summer.

          • EeeOar

            Hmmm, that name sounds awfully familiar……..don't help me, it will come to me, just give me a moment or two…

          • Jan

            Here's the clue – Gazebo

  • PeterboroDave

    Tony Clement is the Art Eggleton of the Conservative Party. Useless, completely useless.

    • tedbetts

      The problem (or scary part) of your analogy is that Art Eggleton was re-elected multiple times and became Toronto's longest serving mayor. Please please tell me you've reconsidered and think your analogy wrong.

      • Blue

        Sometimes Toronto voters re-elect useless Liberal MP`s multiple times.

        • tedbetts

          At least useless Liberal MPs get elected by the riding members. Useless Conservative MPs need the central party HQ to lie, cheat, change the rules without notice to protect them from the riding members.

          By the way, a propos of nothing at all, has anyone yet figured out what Rob Anders has on Harper?

    • Jan

      I think Tony Clement is in a class all by himself – I'm thinking Remedial Statistics.

    • gottabesaid

      Not so. On this file, he has proven to be very, very useful for the government. I'm not sure who else could have stood up there and taken that kind of abuse over the past several months and just keep standing there, smilin'. His job was to defend an indefensible position, and (essentially) he did it. He redirected into the ether all those sound and reasonable arguments why the census should be kept. He did his job. I'm guessing Harper finds him very, very useful.

  • Matlock

    To paraphrase a quip I believe I read from Stephen Gordon…

    For $30 million, Tony Clement has turned the long-form census into an extremely expensive random number generator.

    I have a $9.99 Casio calculator that can do the same thing.

    • http://worthwhile.typepad.com StephenGordon

      It's worse than that: the budget for the census is something like $500m. That $30m was the cost of mailing out extra forms.

  • novagardener

    If I receive the long form census I know what I'll do with it. We have a great composting system here.

  • Matthew

    ping?

  • Blue

    ………………………and so the Liberal supporter campaign to sabotage the Census has begun.
    I`m sure they will convince themselves they act for the good of the country.

    • Jan

      The sabotage has already taken place.

    • A_logician

      Now why would the Liberals waste effort trying to sabotage something already so thoroughly damaged?

    • danby

      The good of the country?

      Like the civic duty that was completely shunted aside in tony's justification for cancelling the MLF?

    • gottabesaid

      Oh, it's not a census anymore, it's a survey. The Liberals are sabotaging the the National Household Survey. Tony sabotaged the census.

    • frobisher

      How do you manage to stand without any legs? Is there a trick with gravity you do? Smoke and mirrors? Regardless, neat trick.

    • Halo_Override

      Yeah, letting the air out of the car's tires when someone else has already destroyed the engine is truly heinous and destructive behavior.

  • john g

    The balls on this guy. Unbelievable.

    • frobisher

      Unbelievable indeed. Lil' Tony was gelded a while ago.

  • Matthew

    I suppose something that puts my mind at ease is that there is no way Tony Clement will ever become Prime Minister. That guy has the amazing ability to lose any leadership race he enters by massive margins.

  • sourstud

    *snore*

  • TJCook

    How can we miss Tony Clement if he won't go away?

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