Industry Minister Tony Clement's tweets aside, Stephen Harper's Conservatives know that changing the 2011 long-form census from compulsory to voluntary makes it useless for public and private Canadian decision makers. That's exactly why they're doing it.

An economist, the prime minister understands the value of statistics. He appreciates that authoritative statistics on the relative social and economic well-being of individual Canadians empower the disempowered to demand government programs (higher taxes) to reduce poverty and disparity and promote upward mobility.

Virtually alone in the growing outrage over the federal government's decision to scrap the long-form mandatory census, the Fraser Institute threw its support behind the government's decision with its chief economist Niels Veldhuis arguing that "voluntary surveys will yield enough accurate information about the country and critics saying otherwise are members of 'vested interest groups."

A day after Munir Sheikh, the head of Statistics Canada, resigned from his job citing the Harper government's proposed scrapping of mandatory long-form census forms for 2011, here is a look at the ideology behind the voluntary census scheme that replaces it.

Jeffrey Simpson's column on July 17 nailed it.

There is only one reason this census situation is so senselessly white-hot: the government's position. Its radical ideology and stunning stubbornness have raised the stakes alarmingly high.