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.
There must be plenty of Conservatives who are recoiling at the shenanigans of these so-called Conservatives.
Every time Industry Minister Tony Clement and the prime minister's spokesthingy says "coercive" and "intrusive" without bidding, my mind flashes up pictures of our own police in riot gear at the G20 protests and hundreds of people being filed into and out of detention centres for public disturbances like blowing bubbles. Is this my Canada?
I digress. We know now, from weeks of press, that without the information from the mandatory long-form questionnaire, a host of other smaller survey results produced by Statistics Canada will be rendered questionable with respect to their representativeness, and hence their reliability.
Cast doubt on the data and we start mistrusting not only big business, big unions and big government, but now information, the very stuff that society is supposedly made of these days.
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Well actually, it's not information that is being smeared. It's official information.
Canadians from every point of the political compass have always trusted Statscan data. Indeed, Canadians have long been viewed internationally as one of the best countries in the world for producing rigorous statistics that are relevant, timely, and reasonably accessible to all Canadians. Suddenly the data they produce is maybe not so trustworthy.
When Conservative politicians or the Fraser Institute weigh in on the virtues of eliminating the long-form Census, the audience that trusts them gets led further down a path of eroding trust in something as basic and apolitical as data.
Clement has called Statistics Canada an "arm of government." And that's bad, of course, because the Conservative's core message is that you can't trust government, that you, the solitary individual Canadian, are the best judge.
In the past few weeks, despite the wall of reasoned opposition that has arisen, the government has vigorously promoted such thinking among their supporters and folks who are not quite sure what to think.
The Conservative storyline is that the information collected by the government is unreliable because it is mandatory to answer. Presumably, in their view, a lot of Canadians lie when "forced" to fill out a Census questionnaire.
But their narrative has a one-two punch: the information is suspect, and the government's use of this information is potentially nefarious.
This is somewhere between a populist and conspiracy-theory position, held by some, but hardly appropriate for a government to advance.
That way lies all sorts of wasted resources and, dare I say it, anarchy.
If you don't buy official statistics, all you have is polls, market surveys and stories.
The Conservatives' anti-information strategy creates space for more mis-information strategies.
And so we drift towards the anti-information information society, brought to you by the anti-government government.
These are not Conservatives. These are the true anarchists in our midst, willing to destroy order just because they can.
Armine Yalnizyan's blog on The Progressive Economics Forum website is part of a series on the Harper's government's axing of the long-form census. It can be found here.
The anarchistic law and order freak Harper administration.
It's true. If we don't have unbiased and unallied statistics to consult, the Harperites can say whatever they like about crime rates, religious adherence, family structure or anything else and we'll have no way of knowing. Bad policy will follow bad information.
Chalk up another casualty in the war on civil servants - you know, people who work for Canadians. Mr. Sheikh joins Linda Keen and Richard Colvin who were reviled by the Cons for actually knowing something and being good and consciencious at what they do.
There is no room for competence and ethics in Harper's Canada.
Remember the old saw "Information is Power."
stevey harper wants you to have neither.
There is no need to collect a traditional census. All of the relevant data is already available, more accurately (people lie on census forms--surprise!), from government ministries and departments: immigration, taxation and jobs, births and deaths, eligible voters, everything. Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway use the 'data mining' system, and now Britain and Germany are scrapping their censuses for this system. The data is simply more accurate, timely and cheaper to acquire:
http://www.economist.com/node/16590962?story_id=16590962
The only thing collecting a census accomplishes is keeping public servants in jobs, which is why PSAC and CUPE are making such a stink about it. Corporate users also love the current system's sloppy privacy protection, which gives them access to reams of consumer data, effectively collected under a government subsidy, with state coercion.
Most people despise the census, where they are forced under penalty of law, into sharing personal information. Whatever one thinks of the current government, this is a populist move which will garner them votes. Sheikh's resignation was nothing more than a hissy fit over the prospect of having his department's budget cut. To reiterate--there is no need for a census, period.
Good post Green Bone.
My sentiments exactly.
What business is it of the 'nation' and our fellow citizens to know about "religious adherence" or "family structure" of others?
None I can see. The relevant agencies, departments, organizations, businesses etc., that need this information already have it because they collect it themselves or they can get it directly from the relevant agencies and departments, etc.
The fact that these censuses are mandatory and backed up with punitive fines and jail sentences for noncompliance tells us that Stats Can anticipated they would be and are unpopular.
Sometimes I think that Harper must be sneering at those who point the finger at his evil 'ideological' motives cause he knows they're distracted from his truer agenda. In this case his agenda is to prevent exposure of the widening gap between the rich and the poor. When would the 2010 census data hit the front pages? Late 2011 or 2012. What would it reveal? A stagnating middle class. Loads of poor living in overcrowded apartments. The fallout from the recession. His other moves that have been positioned as ideological (scrapping equal pay for work of equal value and nixing affirmative action hiring) are to give his gov't freedom to lower wages and to lessen employer responsibilities. It's not primarily ideological. Andrew Coyne of Maclean's has pointed out that Harper's conservatives stand for nothing. Why does Rabble think he stands for 'ideologies'. He doesn't!
Lower wages for workers and less responsibility for employers is the essence of the capitalist ideology that Harper stands for.
What do you think ideology means, anyway?
Well, I think that 'capitalist' is a strong word to use that might discount most of what we do every day. The danger in leading the charges with ideological condemnation is that the true errors don't come to light. In this case, Harper has run roughshod over Statscan. The issues here are: data transparency, government accountability and the relationship between Harper's government and the public service. I've said this elsewhere, but I'll repeat: for all we know, Harper may have decided to use data mining as Green Bone above pointed out. Presuming that is his decision, what do we see? He scraps the census and doesn't advise what will replace it. He alienates Statscan while he positions to change the organization substantively with data mining. He of course wants to maximize the secrecy of this data mined from other ministries while he has the opportunity, so all his management is hush, hush and the reason is Harper's incessant positioning of everything the government does toward his own political gain. Now did you read that above or in this blog comment? That's my point.
Green Bone has argued Harper's position very nicely. We don't need a census because only I, King Stephen, need to know the facts, and I can get them by throwing all privacy laws out the window and using my vast network of spies to mine confidential data about my subjects without their knowledge or consent.
Never mind that statistical sampling and randomizing methods to ensure accuracy of the data are thrown out as well; the important thing is that the flawed information will be entirely under the control of me, King Stephen, and the public and my political opponents won't have access to it.
Even Jeffrey Simpson recognizes the ideological basis for this policy:
It appears that Simpson, who supported the election of Harper, may be starting to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis.
I take your point but with Harper it's really hard to know whether ideology is at the basis of his decisions because he's not consistent. Honestly what I see with Stephen Harper is that he's a poor manager. He makes too many mistakes. Alienates everyone. All his decisions are not necessarily bad but he can't seem to implement anything. For example, he pushed the provinces to own daycare. Is that wrong? Ideologically driven? Should the feds be funding 100% of Albertan's childcare? Yet the way he did it was so dishonest. He should come out and said what was happening. Instead he tossed 100 a month per kid under 5 at us, withdrew funding and the transition...waiting for the provinces to step up to the plate -- cause so much suffering. If he couldn't get the provinces to agree, at least he should have been more open with Canadians that the feds are not going to cover education to that extent. Not an ideological decision, just housekeeping, right? Did you pause to consider that his 'ideology' might be in place to please the provincial powers? I don't know what moves Harper, you don't know and there is no reputable journalist that knows and will tell the public. That government power circle is sealed up tight. There's no leaks.
No. The one thing that Harper is absolutely consistent about is that all his decisions are ideologically motivated. He may make mistakes, he may be dishonest, and he may be a poor manager, but he's a conscious ideologue.
Push the provinces to own daycare? Part of his plan to make the federal government smaller and to download the costs of social programs onto the provinces, so that Alberta can refuse to carry them out without provoking a federal-provincial crisis.
I don't need journalists - reputable or otherwise - to tell me what Harper's ideology is. He's made it abundantly clear that he is motivated by neo-conservative and Christian evangelical ideologies, just as George W. Bush was. Anybody who hasn't figured that out by now just hasn't been paying attention.
Two questions:
1. How do we know that Harper hasn't already deep mined government ministries, departments, agencies, crown corporations, etc., for information?
How do we know that Harper/PMO/PCO/Cabinet hasn't already illegally obtained personal/private information from Stats Can?
That seems to be the dichotomy.
2. How to reconcile Harper's neo-con/libertarian economic principles/ideology with his police state/'Get tough of crime', his support of (the Afghan) and war (in general), the increase in the 2010 Defense Department budget (when all other ministries and departments received cuts, except Corrections) and the 20 year $490B worth of arms contracts that Harper has committed to?
Now, the corrections 'industry' and the military can always be privatized. This would 'work' (of a fashion) for corrections.
It could never wholly work for the military. The arms industry would never allow it.
Private security companies could never earn enough money to buy single unit billions dollars worth weapons/weapons systems, like F-35 fighters, main battle tanks, naval vessels, ICBMs, defense satellite radar systems, etc.