This article was last updated on May 19, 2022
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I guess the most fascinating part of these census emails, the concerted effort by the government to sanitize their ideological push, and make it appear as though Statistics Canada was on board. We see emails, wherein government references are removed and replaced, part of the "communications strategy" to sell these census changes.
Tony Clement completely misrepresented the position of Statistics Canada:
Industry Minister Tony Clement was well aware that Statistics Canada had little use for a voluntary census when he was telling Canadians that StatsCan was onside with his decision to scrap the mandatory, long-form survey, internal government documents show.
In an email to the minister’s advisers in March, a StatsCan official says a self-administered voluntary survey “provides a response rate of 50 per cent.” The email goes on to say that, with follow-up and interviewer support, the response rate can be increased to 65-70 per cent, “which is still not an acceptable outcome for a census.”
Yet Clement publicly gave the impression that the respected federal data collecting agency supported the Conservatives’ move to scrap the mandatory nature of the 40-page, long-form survey that has traditionally gone out to one-in-five households at census time.
“We’ve come up with a way that is statistically valid, that StatsCan feels can work,” Clement said during an appearance at McGill University last month.
Obviously, it is entirely predictable that any government would try and sell their policies, nothing unusual there. However, to purposely cite support from the bureaucracy, where NONE exists, in fact the opposite, raises serious questions about the moral fitness of the Minister.
If you ask me, looking at the sequence of events, the wrong person was forced to resign.
The mandatory long form census contains vital information that is of great interest to social scientists, business, politicians and the public in general. They will still require the information but may be placed in the position of paying for it. Strangling Stats-Canada would certainly be doing a favour to privately held information gathering companies who may not be committed to quality information and will most certainly lead to influence being directed by unknown agents with a dubious product. Perhaps a further closure of the Canadian mind. It’s a continued bad pattern of music from the Harper Valley orchestra.
Roy Berger Cornwall