an opinion on the census

I agree with you.

In fact, your arguments can also be used for the regular census:

The government already has the relevant information and collecting the trivial, unimportant non relevant information is a criminal waste of taxpayers' money.

I think this census business has a much sinister purpose: To test the docility and loyalty of a mindless sheep like public by government and businesses that benefit from this.

i like the census. it gives me something to do once in a while.

And here I thought putting Jedi in for religion was original.  Damn.

The date that cabbie joined is a dead giveaway that this individual is from the Conservative Resource Group here looking for ammo on the next issue after arts funding, cutting the subsidy, prorogation, and changing the lyrics to the national anthem that they've allowed themselves to trip over.

Do not feed the blue beast.

Yeah, that was my take, Ottawaobserver. 

This is a government that thinks ignorance is a viable strategy.

It's funny how the northern Teabaggers get all upset about the shadowy Govment collecting rather benign stats about them at the same time not minding when the real government violates people's civil rights on a grand scale for all to see.

Niki Ashton of the NDP has claimed on her facebook wall that the long census is used to organize social programs. No census, no programs. Of course it's in the Cons' interest to cut this valuable research tool.

And for anyone who is going to complain, cabbie has been banned, so no one flag his/her post for using the epithet "Eskimo," please!

Have long known that the census is how they allot money for social programs, education and health care. And transfer payments to the provinces.

The money alloted, to everyone, even Indigenous communities, is based on population densities.

Cute though to present it as if it were a quote when apparently it is not (the only place it can be found online is here).

It was actually a column by the editorial page editor in the Vancouver Province.  I don't think they keep their stuff online very long, but in any event it was legit, and one of only two public endorsements of the government's position ... the other one being Joan Crockatt of the Calgary Herald in her Twitter feed.  Even the Ed Board of the National Post came out with an editorial tonight slamming the government's census decision.  Honestly, newsrooms would die for copy without all those studies.

Are you sure that this information comes from the census and not from 'front line' agencies and organizations like clinics, doctors, dentists, hospitals, EI, Social Security, social workers, police, parole officers, criminologists, birth records, health records, death records, deeds, mortgages, income and corporate taxes, driver's license records, auto insurance records, educational institution attendance (for most, it's all or part of PS K-12) etc.?

If it's true that the census was originally established in 1871, that was before births and deaths were officially recorded at the national level, universal health care, public schools, welfare/social security, a regular uniformed police force, the invention of automobiles, personal (income) taxes, so I can see the need for bean counters and stats freaks to come up with such a thing (as a census).

However, now that we have all these modern social and techological advances (as mentioned above) we no longer need a census.

One government agency, department or Crown corporation or another has already collected the information. The information is only a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) (by the Feds) request away.

Another thing I find frightening is I have read and heard more than one account from those who argue in favor of the census (James Travers, to name but one example) where businesses also have access to this information.

No goddamn way am I going to contribute my personal information to something that will hand that information over to some businesses.

Businesses already have access to personal information from uninformed consumers: When you agree to a shopping store card, you fill out and sign a survey that asks for personal information. The fine print at the bottom of the form states that by signing the form, the store may pass this information on to third parties. Every time you shop and use the store card and get a discount on some items, the record of your purchase goes to a company like Kraft Foods Ltd. (among others). They match up your purchases with your age, gender, ethnicity, income, whether you own a car or a home, etc., and use that to manipulate our buying trends through marketing and sales to increase their profit.

Don't jump on the pro census bandwagon just because some notable (possibly progressive?) persons argue in favor of it.

The businesses and social agencies and researchers gain access to the aggregate data, scrubbed of any personally identifying information.  Statistics Canada is so careful not to identify individuals that they won't even give out aggregate data if the number of cases is so low that it could even possibly identify the individuals.

You are also mixing up the Access to Information parts of that legislation with the Privacy parts.  Individuals' information (and companies' for that matter) cannot be given out by the government.  But you can request your own, if you make a request under the Privacy Act.  I've never done it, but I understand it's quite an interesting process.

On the other hand, I never give out my postal code to companies when I buy things.  I do trust Statistics Canada, though, which is internationally recognized as the very best statistical agency in the world (although not for long, at this rate ...)

All the technological advances in the world aren't worth a fig if you don't have good, reliable data, though.  It's the knowledge in the knowledge economy, and one of the very few things people from right across the spectrum can agree on, as we've seen this week (which has been really and truly remarkable, actually) ... from the National Post to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative, from the Bankers to the Canadian Labour Congress.

The front-line agencies couldn't possibly afford to replicate these datasets.  They do collect their own data, but they weight it against census data to make sure it's properly representative, or to add more depth for analysis.

Please give this another thought, Frmsldr.  Building up all these conspiracy theories to get rid of the census is one of the big issues of the Tea Party movement in the states right now, and has unfortunately crept across our border.  We have got to maintain our dataset for comparisons over time, in order to make sure that down the road we can return to making policy decisions based on good evidence, and not based on right-wing whack job conspiracy theories of the moment.

The fact the media is giving good air time to anti census voices is by itself suspecious. This issue needs clarification but I doubt frmrsldr claim that the data collected is handed out to businesses.

hmmm.....it is also how we get our Senators....

And the only information businesses get, is the same information anyone can get including us here...

and census have been around for at least 2000 years so I am not sure where/what I should be running away fro. I use census information all the time, and really do not see an issue.

It's later than you think. Stats Can has already farmed out collecting census data to an American private company, just as hospitals in B.C. (and I'm sure in Ontario and Quebec) have done the same when it comes to storing personal medical data.

I can give you a personal example. I refused to fill out the last (regular) census (I have never filled out a census). A person from the company that collects the information called me and tried to get me to provide the information one way or another. I refused and told her why. She ended the conversation by asking me if I was Mr. ____ _________ who lived at ___ ____ __ and if the number she called was my number.

This underscores my point: Her information was correct. She already had the information she was 'supposedly' looking for. Now in my case it's easy. I'm listed in the local 'phone directory. But what if I had an unlisted number? My guess is some census collector would have gotten that information another way and tried to contact me anyways.

FOIA/Privacy Act are the flip sides of the same act. Anonymous aggregate requests can be made through FOIA. Journalists and other researchers do it all the time. However, given the 'cloak and dagger', 'spy versus spy', security freak, fascist 'law and order' nature of the current government, do you think they will respect such legal and Constitutional niceties when it comes to seeking information about suspected "Public Enemy Number One" criminals and 'terrorists'?

As a person with long held anarchistic tendencies, I believe that it's never a good idea to give the government too much personal information. The biggest beef I have against the teabaggers is that idiots like Sarah Palin try to hijack them.

If one were to convince them to embrace logical consistency, then their opposition to ballooning government and ballooning government expenditure would cause them to join the antiwar movement en masse because there is nothing like war to cause government and government spending to grow exponentially.

With me, it's not so much government spending. It's where the government is spending the money. I'd much rather have a welfare/social security state than a warfare/police state. In the end, looking after our citizens costs a lot less than locking them up and sending them off to perpetual wars.

Well, the government is just about to spend 65 billion on new fighter jets, from Lockheed Martin....now there is something I can get on board with fighting against.

They are already talking about cost overuns. I think the number was 18 Billion for 65 Jets though. Including maintenance but it will get a lot more expensive and probably wind up around 65 Billion in the end.

'kay got the numbers wrong, thought it was 65 billion,  not 65 jets.

But I agree if it is 18 billion, we can double that, at least, and what do we need them for again?

The Canadian government said Friday it plans to spend $9 billion to purchase a new generation of fighter jets, the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay told a news conference in Ottawa that the jets would be purchased from Lockheed Martin, with the first one expected for delivery by 2016

The contract, one of the biggest military equipment purchases in Canadian history, is worth $9 billion, but the full cost could rise to as much $18 billion once the government signs a maintenance contract

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/07/16/canada-jets.html#ixzz0triu851u

I am convinced that this orgy of military spending is being done on now on purpose to get it out of the way before the slash and burn comes in for everything else.

Is there a single source for all the defence spending announcements? We keep hearing of new major ones every few weeks and they must be adding up?

ETA-Thorin Bane is asking for a list in another thread-- we need to have a list of what the Cons have announced over the last couple years.

Do they collect military spending info in the census?

I'm jumping in on the consensus position around the long form - save it. 

No.  It's just information about households, their income, occupation, size, ethnicity, education, etc.

See: http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/07/16/the-monstrous-thing/

Thanks OO. I'll have a look at that.  I forgot my "get back on track" emoticon.

Please give this another thought, Frmsldr.  Building up all these conspiracy theories to get rid of the census is one of the big issues of the Tea Party movement in the states right now, and has unfortunately crept across our border.  We have got to maintain our dataset for comparisons over time, in order to make sure that down the road we can return to making policy decisions based on good evidence, and not based on right-wing whack job conspiracy theories of the moment.

It's funny, I agree with you again, Ottawaobserver, but at the same time I have lots of sympathy for Frmsldr's position.

Thing is Frmsldr, if we ever actually got a government that wanted to make decisions ( anti-progressive or progressive, doesn't matter) based on reality, then we had better have some real data for them to base it on.

One of the funniest bits in Joseph Heller's "Catch 22"  was when Yosarian invented a rumour about the Germans having a "Lepage gun" that was going to "glue them to the sky".    Days later, the rumour came back around to Yosarian, and he fainted in terror.

We all know Harper's anti progressives have a certain dogma that can only be supported by the absence of facts.   That's what they are against: Facts.   If they haven't already, they will one day start believing all the missinformation and take absence of evidence as evidence of absence, and end up scaring themselves into some brainless decision.

If it was really protecting people from an over reaching government that wants to invade our privacy, I think we'd be hearing from our anti progressive friends more often, on many other subjects.  But then crypto fascists have always had a narcisistic take on freedom and liberty.

On a lighter note, I always give a postal code when asked by a retailer.

Hey, Tommy, since I started filling out questionnaires claiming I was an MD with an income of $200,000 p.a. I get a much better class of junk mail and invitations to time-share seminars without any obligation and free WINE and !CHEESE!. Of course invitations aren't actually addressed to me but to my dear departed cat Arthur F-P, MD FRCCS.

In order to have facts and useful information for government to make rational policies there are two aspects involved:

1. It's not necessary to take it down to the individual level,

2. The government can have all the (useful and relevant information) in the world but will they use it?

Doctors and health care workers have predominantly argued for universal access to (a reasonable) quality of health care and against a two-tier (introducing "free market") health care system.

Criminologists have argued that the rate of crime in Canada (and the U.S.A.) has gone down for the past decade.

This information didn't come from no census done at the level of the individual private citizen(s).

What does the Harper administration do?

It spends money on the most expensive things governments can throw money at: war and defense budgets and on a ballooning 'police state' prison system at the detriment to child care, social services, health care, and pensions, etc.

Of all the departments, all of them got cuts to their 2010 budgets except the Defense Department - they got a 2% increase over last year's budget. These new fighters are part of the $490 billion worth of contracts with the arms industry over a 20 year period the Harper administration has locked us into. What about Corrections Canada? The new 'get tough on crime' bills and legislation are an indication. It's only the start.

'Ditching census upsets faith groups'

'Faith groups are the latest contingent to complain about the federal government's decision to cut out the long-form census.

'Both the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada have written to the Conservative government to voice their concerns.

'They say they rely heavily on the data from the census to better serve their communities ... '

It spends money on the most expensive things governments can throw money at: war and defense budgets and on a ballooning 'police state' prison system at the detriment to child care, social services, health care, and pensions, etc.

Which is all part of the "Starve the Beast" plan, where government runs up a deficit, through tax cuts and spending, then turns around and slashes spending on human infrastructure.

That's something we'll have to deal with one way or another.  I would suggest census data will help us in that fight, and that's one of the reasons Harper wants to shitcan the census.

Mind you, there will always be wierd and inapropriate questions on a census form, and I have no problem complaining about those individual items.

Hey, Tommy, since I started filling out questionnaires claiming I was an MD with an income of $200,000 p.a. I get a much better class of junk mail and invitations to time-share seminars without any obligation and free WINE and !CHEESE!. Of course invitations aren't actually addressed to me but to my dear departed cat Arthur F-P, MD FRCCS.

He he.  I get survey calls from companies the odd time.   I think it's the height of chutzpah that they expect me to spend my time to give them information they are going to turn around and make money with.   

On the coroporate end, it's time we did invest the time to complete such surveys with the most incorrect information as possible.  

And no, I don't use "points cards" or "air miles".

Joan Crockett of the Herald lol....she passes herself off as a political commentator and that's true insofar as she's also master of the obvious.

Any comments on Sandra Finley and her fight with StatsCan over her refusal to fill out the 2006 form? There's some question as to whether her case will go forward or not in Sept now that the Tories have nixed the mandatory requirement. Some have argued that the Tories made the change in advance of her case because they do not want to be seen beating up a 60+ year old activist in court or that the court might rule against the government on Charter grounds.. Neither of these arguments make much sense as clearly  the Tories have not given that much thought to this issue and the goverment has no problem letting kids rot in foreign jails so why would a grandmother matter? I can't think what Charter issues might be raised so I doubt that would be it.

Finley's principle objection is not the mandatory nature of the census but Lockheed-Martin's involvement with the data. The American company has been involved with the census since 2001 and the possibility of the US government demanding access to the data under the Patriot Act (assuming Lockheed-Martin hasn't just turned the data over wholesale anyway).

Finally, does anyone know of a specific government program or decision that has been based on the long-form census data or an example of where the data has improved government programs?

Golly, there has been a ton of work compiling that information for people in the last few days.  A good starting point is the website http://datalibre.ca [33] .  Also, of course the Progressive Economics site:  http://progressive-economics.ca [34]

In a related story, the Conservative Party of Canada announced today that they would no longer conduct intrusive public opinion surveys during election campaigns, and instead rely solely on voluntary internet polls.

This particular policy is not just an attack on democracy-- it is an all out assault on the tools of governance.

I think we're getting too 'wrapped around the axle' over census surveys (at the level of the individual) providing government with the tools of governance.

As I explained above, they are unnecessary and redundant because various government departments and agencies already have this information.

These individual level census surveys are an affront to personal privacy and individual (civil) liberties. As such, they are antidemocratic.

Don't look now, but 'Big Brother' is watching you.

If we're not careful, these census surveys will entrap us in a Kafka-esque bureaucratic distopia.

By the way, anyone read any good George Orwell or Franz Kafka lately?

I'm sorry Frmrsldr, but to be blunt, you simply do not know what you're talking about there.  No-one has a dataset that big, of that quality, and so useful for so many different purposes.  It could not be collected by anyone else, anything less that was collected privately would not be of as high a quality, would not be historically comparable to earlier censuses, and would never be protected in terms of privacy as well as the StatsCan long-form census dataset.

Unless you can specify by name the datasets those other departments and agencies supposedly already have, it will only prove that you're pulling that statement completely out of thin air.

Again, brother, I respect some of the opinions you're presenting here, but those facts are dead wrong.

The stats can data is not even linked to the outside world. There is something to be said about living in a society and having civic responsibilities.

I don't want the elite to pretend to speak FOR ME, so having the census filled out by all makes more sense. 30% forms and your dog can vote too. Not good policy.

If you think the real spy agencies don't already know what you are doing, you are wrong. Taking away the few tools beauracrats have to make sound decisions will lead to a bigger disaster that 'those that watch' will not be effected by anyway.

If tommy douglas was watched, then I imagine rabble is also heavily scrutinized already, they probably know as much as can be gleaned form your cookies and whatever anyway. Posting on a leftwing site is more than enough for them to have their attention towards you. Posting here is more dangerous than allowing stats can to know you have 2 toilets in your house.

Just to give some perspective.

I can't see posting here being a big deal-- I think there is solid power to the capitalist system and that we have not come up with any credible threats to it. Our speculation and opinion aside, what useful information would they have from what we right? It isn't as if they listen to us or care what we think. If someone came on here saying they were going to do some direct action I suppose that would get attention but otherwise I think we would bore them with stuff they don't care about.

I would wager the monitor these forums. I am not saying they are sitting outside our houses...yet. But they do have snoops on left forums. But you still highlight my point. As little as they care about disident opinion, they care less who has how many toilets in their house. Other than for sewer construction.

Canada's chief statistician took an angst-ridden time out Wednesday to contemplate his future and the position of his agency, the latest twist in the crisis over the Conservative government's decision to scrub the mandatory long-form census.

Good. I hope he does resign over this.

Chief Statistician resigns.  Resignation letter on Stat Can website.

It's now offiicial

Munir A. Sheikh:

It can not."

The resignation reported on the American Bloomberg business news.

It's hard to see exactly what constituency Harper was trying to court with this.  The libertarian right?  I would have thought the true hardcore libertarian right (as opposed to those only like to pose the way) must be pretty small in Canada.

1. When one is born (for most people it's in a hospital) the doctor asks for a name. He fills an official document that is sent to the government.

2. When one is enrolled in a public school (most people are), an official document is filled out for the school district which is later sent to the provincial government.

3. When one applies for a social security insurance number, the government gets your private info.

4. When one applies for and takes the driver's license test, that information goes to the provincial government.

5. When one gets a job and later has to file income taxes - that's a major source of information for the federal government.

6. When one falls ill, has a medical condition or an accident and sees a doctor and is given prescription drugs, or spends time in a hospital or clinic for medical treatment or surgery, there are medical records that are kept by the hospital and the provincial health ministry.

7. When one buys a car and auto insurance, that information is collected by the provincial government.

8. When one buys a home and pays fire insurance on it, that information is kept by the provincial government.

9. When one applies for Employment Insurance, social assistance and welfare, the government gets your information.

10. If one runs foul of the law and has a record - too easy for the government to access this (anonymous) information to get stats on the rate of crime etc., in Canada.

11. When one contributes to, then collects a federally funded pension, the government has that personal information.

12. When one dies, the provincial coroner performs a standard duty and the government gets a report. It's a matter of official public notification when one is deceased.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century, we in the Western world have lived in a Kafka-esque "bureaucrazy" stats freak dystopia.

I never said this information was all collected and/or deposited in one central location. I don't think that's an issue. As I've said above, if the feds want stats on something, they can make FOIA requests to the appropriate agency, department etc., just like journalists and researchers do.

Up until the 1980s, all this information was on paper and in files in all these different physical locations among agencies and departments, etc.

With the advent of the computer and the internet it's now easier than ever for the feds (or computer hackers, for that matter) to access this information.

Again, with computers and the internet and intranet, even though these databases are still ('physically') 'all over the place', they are virtually in a central location.

I'm opposed to the census having all this information (in a central location) because it makes it too easy for the feds to access the original raw data. In Canada, the census information is collected by a private American owned company. I know this because I know someone who worked for that company during the last census.

You can have all the stats and census data in the world, but what does it matter if the government chooses to ignore it or says it is incorrect as in the case of the Harper administation concerning the rate of crime in Canada?

Also, do you think these Nixonian "the means are always just if the end is 'just' - the ends are 'just' because we say they are", Harper administration creeps are going to have any qualms about violating the laws and Constitution when it comes to abusing the census data to get personal information on private citizens if they are suspected of being 'terrorists' or 'criminals', etc? Hell no. Herr Harper can pull the same stunt he did over Torturegate: This information is classified because we are protecting the security of the nation.

Pardon me if this is a 'dense' question, but what the hell do they need to know how many toilets 'citizen X' has?

If they absolutely must have this information, they can get it from the municipalities. They don't have to bother John and Jane Public over this. Again, I think it's loyalty and willingness to cooperate test.

This is a helpful guide to the questions on the long form and the reasons they're asked:

http://datalibre.ca/2010/07/19/uses-of-census-long-form-data-question-ju...

1. When one is born (for most people it's in a hospital) the doctor asks for a name. He fills an official document that is sent to the government.  [PROVINCIAL]

2. When one is enrolled in a public school (most people are), an official document is filled out for the school district which is later sent to the provincial government.  [SCHOOL BOARD]

3. When one applies for a social security insurance number, the government gets your private info.  [FEDERAL]

4. When one applies for and takes the driver's license test, that information goes to the provincial government.  [PROVINCIAL]

5. When one gets a job and later has to file income taxes - that's a major source of information for the federal government.  [FEDERAL]

6. When one falls ill, has a medical condition or an accident and sees a doctor and is given prescription drugs, or spends time in a hospital or clinic for medical treatment or surgery, there are medical records that are kept by the hospital and the provincial health ministry.  [I THINK WE ALL KNOW HOW BADLY THE ORGANIZING OF THOSE RECORDS INTO AN e-HEALTH RECORD IS GOING IN ONTARIO, BY NOW.]

7. When one buys a car and auto insurance, that information is collected by the provincial government.  [NOT IN MOST PROVINCES; IT'S HELD BY PRIVATE COMPANIES OUTSIDE QC, MB, SK AND BC]

8. When one buys a home and pays fire insurance on it, that information is kept by the provincial government.  [REALLY? NOT THAT I'M AWARE OF.]

9. When one applies for Employment Insurance, social assistance and welfare, the government gets your information.  [FEDERAL]

10. If one runs foul of the law and has a record - too easy for the government to access this (anonymous) information to get stats on the rate of crime etc., in Canada.  [YES, SHARED THROUGH CPIC]

11. When one contributes to, then collects a federally funded pension, the government has that personal information.  [IT'S A PERSONAL RECORD, AND THUS PROTECTED BY PRIVACY LEGISLATION]

12. When one dies, the provincial coroner performs a standard duty and the government gets a report. It's a matter of official public notification when one is deceased.  [PROVINCIAL]

Those are disparate datasets that exist across multiple levels of government, and would be very difficult to link.  They also don't give a single-point-in-time picture.

The whole point of the demographic data collected in the long-form census is that cross-tabulations of various attributes with each other can be used to study trends, and validate the representativeness of voluntary samples.

Also, the IT project involved to ever consolidate all that information would be an accident waiting to happen if you've had any exposure to government IT projects.  It's very clear that you don't have an understanding of the workings and limitations of databases from your characterization of how "easy" it all is.  Never mind that the data would not be able to be subject to other research techniques for ensuring the dataset is valid and clean, and represents a single point in time.

Yes, but the handling of personal data within the government is governed by the Privacy Act, and in this case by the Statistics Act as well.  People are so scrupulous about applying those provisions that it slows down work on anything to a crawl, and they won't give out any stats on anything where the number of cases is so small it would risk identifying who those individuals are.

Even CSIS is not allowed to gain access to Census data by law.

There is a difference between information that is classified for national security, information that is classified because it is advice to Cabinet, information that is protected because it is confidential information about a person or business that the government has requested on a promise not to release it, and information that is so personal and private that it justifies extra expenditures to secure even the hardware it is stored on.  All those distinctions are made in the laws and policies of the federal government, and observed by public servants, who are trained in them.

Yes, there is probably some information in the first two categories that is erroneously classified.  But I am telling you that no politician gets access to raw census data.  Period.  Saying anything to the contrary is promoting a conspiracy theory for which there is no evidence whatsoever in Canada.

Thats the point municipalities don't know. Like OO mentioned its whole point is to cross reference. Just because you live in a 2 bathroom home(or more) doesn't indicate income level, religion, education. ETC.

For example. When they have a stat like Middle income earners (40,000-65,000) live in approx 1100 square feet and average 1.6 baths with an education level of "some college" its to show what a college eduction can provide for would be students in Canada, this can be tabulated against  say sweden where it may be 50-75 thousand and live in a 1200 sq ft1.9 bathroom home(not real figures just as an example)

This could indicate better eduction for that level, better support structures in the country, but it has to be cross indexed againt other factors. Test score at age levels for example. Perhaps a grade 11 student in swedan score 9% higher on standardized math tests.(to get away from language discrepancies) If you don't have that information to look at how do you know what is going on relartive from country to country, province ot province, city to city or ward to ward? No way of knowing

Now if it becomes voluntary, those that are working 2 jobs at min wage don't bother to fill it out, not having the time. The new middle income earners are 65,000-90,000 live in 1600sq ft homes with 2.5 bathrooms. Meanwhile more people slip farther down the economic scale.  They then set policy as to what an average family basket should be according to "middle income earned" Meanwhile the true average is some 20,000 less. Meaning bad policy.

When I am designing campaigns for Roleplaying Games, You often generate planets or at least countries to set as a backdrop for the story. Usually this involves giving stats like the ones asked in the census. This gives the game a realistic feel.

Althea has a population of 300,000 with their main city Torath being the hub of trade situated in the middle of the county along a river route to the sea. Torath has 35,000 people with 9 guilds and a poor district of some 10,000 souls. They are the financial and trade capital of the entire region with little manufactured goods outside of silks woven from the spiders of Foxglove Forest. Most other goods are imported from neighbouring states. Slavery is outlawed but exists in the from of serfs paying tithes to the local magister, The magister in turn provides a retenue of 20 knights and 200 men at arms to defend against invaders. The Monarchy is working on developing an aqueduct system by bringing in engineers from far off Aquafina. If all goes well Torath will be able to house and feed an additional 20,000 people.

See that is off the top of my head, We need stats for all kinds of thing and you need to know how they correlate to each other. Even for something as simple as an RPG. I need to know this if my players ask. I can fudge it and make up whatever I want(its my world afterall) or tell the players Ill get that information after I have fleshed out the world a little more. A real government shouldn't be making things up on the fly, or throwing out years and years of data by changing the format completely. They are not gods in a make believe world, and the people they effect aren't imaginary peasants(though they may think of us that way).

This last quote has made me a real cynic and has further confirmed me in my views.

There is a hell of a gap (years) between when the data is collected, when (or if) a government policy is initiated and when (or if) the intended outcomes (assuming the data was correctly understood and properly applied) are achieved.

It's also a leap of faith to assume that just because, for example, the majority of respondents to a census show a trend between being of a certain ethnic group, religion, age, income and owning a house of a certain size with x number of bathrooms that it correlates with the number of degrees (and in what field of study) and educational level attained. People have and can achieve income and material wealth status by other means than education.

I can see why (most?) progressives are in favor of data collection for stats: Social engineering by fed. gov. The down side to this is when the government starts mucking around with society (social engineering) sometimes attempting to right the wrongs it has done, it often (too often) gets it wrong and causes more harm than good or causes unintended/unforseen harm.

This begs the question that most (progressives on this issue) seem to view that it is worse for a government to implement/inflict its agenda on society based on a belief that what it is doing is right. It's better for a government to implement/inflict its agenda on meticulously gathered census data - the assumption (no guarantees, however) being that such a government will (be motivated) to do the right thing.

A great danger is run when such policies are implemented of creating unjust and unjustified discrimination, for example. Rather than asking people stupid questions on an impersonal official document. It's better for the government to ask We the People, "What is the problem that needs to be addressed?", and "How can we solve this problem?", in a personal, encouraging feedback, direct participatory democracy way.

That way, We the People can see that those on Capitol Hill in Ottawa are our representatives and that We the People are the government.

As I've argued, that's a good thing as it reduces the likelihood of the government abusing the data.

I'm sorry, but I don't share your confidence. I'm not convinced of the fact that Herr Harper doesn't have ex-con hackers who owe the feds favors in his employ and that this administration wouldn't flaunt/disregard/ignore/break the laws and our Constitution.

I know that. That's not my argument. My argument about "national security" is a post de facto blanket muzzle order by the government should any public questions arise about the government illegally obtaining personal information from the census.

And to help people suggest solutions, would it not be useful to actually have data to consult? Or are we going to rely on anecdotal evidence?

So we're going to throw out useful information on the idea that it may be illegally obtainable in the future? I hope you're throwing away your credit cards, passport,computer, motor vehicle etc. since they are all able to be taken from you and misused.

The provision of personal information to the government has nothing to do with census data and can never replace it. The information they have on you has a limited purpose and is directly related to you. It cannot be accessed for these purposes or placed in a data bank not by law or practice. Census data is not about you -- it is only about data sets for each question and it is used to inform social policy.

The information is required to decide what population you are serving-- do we need to build more hospitals, cardiac care, schools etc. at what level? Where? Do we need a new highway here? public transit? What will the population look like in ten years? How many toilets is a crude measure needed to project for waste management-- while most don't think about it -- it is actually an important question.

The Census is much older than the industrial revolution and yes, questions have evolved and changed, along with the role of government and planning needs. Data bases with identifiable personal information cannot be used or compiled for practical reasons but from a privacy point of view I would not want them to be.

While we consider its value-- look at who is complaining about the loss-- everyone who provides social policy planning -- look who does not care-- right wing types who do not believe in any collective response.

To the contrary, it allows them to argue any damn thing they please, and no-one else will ever have the dataset to disagree with them.

I am in a better position than you to know that.  However, if you want to maintain your delusions, there is apparently nothing I can say to persuade you otherwise.

Opposition parties are calling for the Conservative government to reverse its "ideological" decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census, saying it has thrown Statistics Canada into "chaos."

The calls by Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale and NDP MP Charlie Angus come a day after Munir Sheikh, the head of Canada's national statistical agency, resigned in protest over Industry Minister Tony Clement's decision to end the mandatory census.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/07/22/statscan-census-tories-.html#ixzz0uR1nTfyv

Fmrsldr, I'm sure that the census data is the last place our Stazi look for data on us. They have Facebook, where people are more than happy to divulge their most private information most publically. And your logic is faulty: if Harper and his brownshirts are combing through our census data, then why are they so eager to dispose of it? If it were true that Big Gubmint is after our private data for nefarious means, then why are they ideologically opposed to its collection? More likely, the objections of the far right to the census have more to do with defunding those "special interests" they so despise, and the first step is to deny that there is a need. No data, no need.

The census does not connect identiities to the data-- I don't know why there is confusion on this.

They only connect your identy to the collection part of it which is broken off at the first stage-- like your ballot-- you identify yourself to vote so they know you can only do it once but your vote is not connected to you.

The census is not a data base with personal information it has only collective information -- we may know how many people of a certain age live in a certain place but that does not say you are a certain age living in a certain place etc.

OO's argument that the government can argue whatever they like and nobody can refute it is very powerful. They ahve access to information they want but the lack of a proper census means they will have a monopoly on the information for decision-making -- this really damages any opposition to their decisions. That should worry you.

Duh, if the people are directly consulted then it would be anecdotal evidence. As other posters who are supporters of the census have claimed, they lie (misrepresent information) on the census forms. Like that's not going to skew/'dirty'/ruin the information(?)

You're confusing Stats Can info with federal government info with provincial government info.

If I'm suggesting "throwing out" anything it would be the Stats Can census (+info collected from it). Forcing the feds to deep mine for information already held in federal, provincial and municipal departments, ministries, agencies, crown corporations etc., through FOIA requests would help reduce the feds from obtaining it illegally, is my argument.

How do you know that governments in the past (and present) haven't already illegally obtained information from Stats Can? I mean it's not like they're going to willingly publicize this or anything.

Motor Vehicle ownership/insurance is provincial level. Unlike passports and motor vehicles, having credit cards and computers doesn't even fall under the public (government) domain. Although if one is a 'person of interest' to the government and they illegally obtain personal information from credit cards and computers, at least that information is not as easily within the grasp of the government 'dangling like a tempting plum' as with the census information.

The government is not opposed to the collection of census data. It is opposed to the mandatory (backed up with the punitive sanctions of fines and jail sentences, what's up with that?) collection by the "Long Form".

1. If the government wants to illegally obtain private information on citizens, it doesn't need Stats Can, it can do it through other government ministries, departments, agencies, crown corporations, etc.

2. It's a cynical ploy to try and gain support from people I would call libertarians (usually of the right) and anarchists (usually of the left.)

Personally, I think this whole issue is a tempest in a tea pot.

Not all Lefties are pro big government, pro Big Brother.

They don't even store identifying information in the census data bank.

They have one data bank to track who has filled it in and another what they said the two can never be put together.

The governments attack on the census includes a lie by implication because the government knows damn well the privacy concerns are bullshit but they allow this to be there to score a political point and kill data needed to inform public policy. This decision is sabotage-- it is practically vandalism of data because it will also render useless data collected in the past as the record will be broken and not comparable.

That's nonsense. People don't need government. Governments need people to lord over and rule.

When there are problems or needs arise, it is THE PEOPLE and the frontline organizations and agencies that get things done.

When Herr Harper or one of his minions makes some pronouncement from his ivory tower that has no reflection on reality, it's going to pass unnoticed?

Are not people and agencies and organizations going to challenge and contradict him? You better believe it.

The only way Canada is going to degenerate into a "Mussolini is always right!" society is if the Herr Harper administration owns and controls all the media and communications and transportation infrastructure.

Well if anyone listened to As It Happens, they have their usual shill to back them. The Fraser Institute had an "economist" on saying anyone interested should pay for this information if they need it. Which sound about right to me. Some place like angus reid, or ipsos, will now be the defacto place for organisations to get information and have to pay for it. Its a scam to allow a company to supply you something that government use to do. But we will pay more for inaccurate government data.

Lets follow this logic. Government data will cost more and be wrong. You can pay for a survey that is fairly accurate by a private company. Win Win...private company makes money...government looks like an idiot again. See medicare for example, defunding it while claiming it costs more(proportion only, because they cut more from other programs ) SO we need to privatize it because government is inefficient.

It might not even be as nefarious as the ability to make policy on an idea thought up in the can (like 'intelligent' design) with no facts to suppoprt it. That is only a side benefit to private companies profiting. Gotta dole out some cabage to all the con supporters. Isn't that what being in charge is all about, more pork please.

Except that the private company's survey won't be accurate, because they won't have the long-form census data to properly weight their survey sub-samples with.

I'm a bit amazed by the intensity of the faux-libertarian stuff I read in this thread. With taxes, jury service and the right to vote, the census is part of civic duty, and has been around since the Roman empire (remember the story of Joseph and his pregnant wife going to Bethlehem... to fill their census).

As for the idea of merging government databases, forget about it. It's against the law in many cases, and for good reason. There is a real danger of allowing the unfettered querying of cross-linked government databases, especially the most sensitive ones (health and tax records), much greater than the "menace" of form 2B. I'd much rather have a segregated StatCan database than open-season on data mining.

You want a new school, a bus route, a medical clinic in a growing neighborhood? Well, census data will help you argue the demographic growth. You want energy efficiency programs, you need data on the housing stock. You want a new [insert religion here] temple? It's helpful to know about religions in an area. And I could go on. Public officials, at all levels, need some of that information from time to time. That's basic policy-making.

The basic point is this: filling the census is a duty of citizenship. Complete and unbiased census data is required for good governance. Making the long-form questionnaire optional is more expensive, reckless and will skew the results, making it less useful.

No but it will be accurate compared to a non manditory governement one. (shades of grey) For that very reason, how would you know any different if it was wonrg. The survey company said it was correct, right!

Industry Minister Tony Clement has dismissed growing calls for him to reverse his decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census, saying he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper are on the same page on the issue.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/07/22/statscan-census-tories-.html#ixzz0uVWsZ0a6

ETA: I just got an email indicating Tony Clement will be on campus Monday morning.

ETAA: I just got an email saying Clement isn't coming Monday. Must be busy with other things.

It seems like getting rid of the census will cause the government to lose a valuable data set of information,

They have this information about us already, just not in a convenient and useful form. So, CSIS (or whoever reads my e-mail) would not be affected by ny refusal or inability to fill out the form, but the people who have to decide on things like municipal infrastructure for the next twenty years will be unable to get the information they need.

I did not know that it was used as a comparison set of data by the other agencies that collect their own data. For that reason alone, it should be kept.

Industry Minister Tony Clement will appear before a parliamentary committee next Tuesday to discuss his decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census, CBC has learned.

Clement has cancelled an event he was scheduled to attend in New Brunswick on Monday so he can prepare for his appearance in Ottawa the next day.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/07/23/census-clement-statscan.html#ixzz0uWlb7FLZ

Clearly, Tony Clement has taken leave of his census...

ok, sorry, but I statscan should be made an arms length servant of parliament because there's nary a well functioning branch of the gov't that Harper and his bunch of teabaggers north won't politicise.  Babble's own Stephen Gordon is quoted in this article in todays Globe.  I anticipate a letter to the editor tomorrow from LTJ calling him a troll, but it's still a good article.

The government by first saying they are making the mandatory form not mandatory because of people's privacy concerns are cutting the legs out of the form when it becomes voluntary- after all if the government thinks there is a legitimate enough privacy concern to justify this then people will believe there is a real privacy concern.

Unfortunately it is all an urban myth since identifying data is not even allowed to be connected even if they wanted it to be.

For political gain the government is generating a fear that is entirely baseless. This is sabotage on more than one level.

The cons (who happen to be Cons.) are also saying that other countries such as the nordic countries have scrapped the census-- but in those countries they have a consensus that does not exist here that the government can share personal data about individuals for statistical purposes. That sharing is illegal in Canada and if the government's propaganda about privacy concerns has any foundation, people here, provided they were properly informed, would find that worse than the form was.

Is there a chance that the scrapping of this form is designed as a part of a two step process where the next step will be the move to sharing data so government will discover it needs to know and show more data about you?

As for the comment about Ipsos etc. If you cannot replace a mandatory long form with an optional one, you cannot replace a mandatory census with an optional opinion poll.

the real point here is that some wealthy people who don't give a shit for any public planning likely can't be bothered to spend the time with the form. More people have trouble with the time involved than the privacy as many people already know that they do not keep identifying information for any other purpose than to know that you filled it in.

Frmsldr-- I will have to just disagree with you because we are too far apart to continue the conversation. I do believe that we as a society need government and do believe in collective responses and collective planning of programs and social policy. Our principle disagree is summed up in your statement that people do not need government. I have to agree with you that if you do not believe in government there is no purpose in a census form. there is no point in derailing a specific conversation about the census to have one about whether you do or do not need government. The same argument can be applied down the line-- if you do not need government, why have a parliament? You would not need to pay taxes either? All functions of government would go in one shot. So I will concede that if you do not need government you don't need a census. Are you willing to concede however, that if you you do need government and you do need to make such collective decisions and planning that then you would need the census? Then we can at least agree that our difference of opinion is not specifically about the census but about the entire role and function of government?

Not just the government. Most of everyone else's survey research is calibrated to census results to ensure it's representative. Screw with the census, you screw with a whole lot of academic and business research too.

Yep.

There is now a facebook page for Munir Sheikh, "Hail to the Chief (Statistician)".  At this point there are just over four hundred supporters and through his son he has said he is overwhelmed by the support.  I am grateful there are still public servants willing to resign over ethical issues. 

The census crisis has reached the New York Times.

What is interesting to note is that what they propose to do is send the long form to 30% of the population on the basis that the percentage of people voluntarily doing it will presumably result in the same number of responses that the mandatory long form would have provided, I have to wonder who is going to be filling it out voluntarily?  It is a blatant attempt to turn Statistics Canada into a very partisan agency. 

And for all those who basically disagree with Harper, I think this is just another sucker punch courtesy of the Harper government for you.

No.

The census is macro (national) level information. If the federal government wishes to deal with a regional or provincial or local issue, more (ever closer to the personal/private) information has to be revealed from the census, like information that can be tied to a specific region or locality.

People are not numbers or statistics. "I am a human being. Please do not crease, staple or fold!"

How many times have you heard the argument, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."?

How many times have you seen government, without consulting with the people, ram some policy down the throats of the people, based on nameless, faceless number crunching and bean counting, doing it with good intentions and saying, "You will learn to accept this and like it, god damn it - it's for your own good."?

I think it's far better if our "representatives" and "public" "servants" get off their thrones and leave their empires (like Stats Can) and consult with the people before they come up with whatever bullshit idea that's going to be the next panacea that's going to turn our society into a supposed paradise.

The social engineers among us have become addicted to Stats Can type agencies. We don't need them. Just like a heroin user doesn't need heroin. Although s/he'll argue vehemently to the contrary.

Franz Kafka was right. Our over-reliance on bureaucracies and stats/data/info collection can (and has) caused dystopian nightmares in human history.

Here are two examples.

1. In the late 1860s and 1870s, private hunters, state authorities and some federal authorities carried out a policy of wiping out the buffalo. Beginning in the 1880s, federal authorities and the U.S. Army forced Indian peoples onto Reservations that could not sustain the lives of the people forced to live there. Also starting in the 1880s, the children of the people were abducted from them and were forced into white communities, into white schools to learn the culture and the ways of the whites.

The (white) people who committed this cultural, and I dare say, physical genocide were not ignorant. In fact, many of them were well educated. They were not evil. Many of them were motivated by good intentions. They saw that the Indian peoples were dying whenever they came into contact with white culture: the result of the "Indian Wars", whites stealing (and murdering them for) their land, whites hunting the animals that the people lived on to extinction and white peoples' diseases. They were informed with the philosophy that, in order for the people to survive, they must be transformed from being Indian into American/Canadian (i.e. "white") citizens.

Their policy was based on the latest social scientific tools (like today) at their disposal like statistic and data gathering, physical and cultural anthropology, etc.

I hope that by providing this example, some may see the logical and moral contradiction in gushing over a macro (national) level census and data collection technique/apparatus as being an in all cases unqualified good. It is not.

2. 'Censuses (both Short and Long Form; are mandatory, backed up by the punitive sanctions of fines and jail sentences) are unqualified goods and can never be abused by government.': During the 1930s and 1940s (in the occupied countries and territories) the nazi government and its puppets conducted many compulsory censuses and surveys of its 'citizens' and 'subjugated' peoples. Later, those identified as 'enemies of the people/state/inferiors/undesirables' were later systematically/scientifically/factory conveyor belt murdered in what has been rightly described as the Holocaust.

The nazi regime considered itself/prided itself a world leader in bureaucratic efficiency and in meticulously and scrupulously gathering data and information.

Why don't you talk to someone about our intrusive mandatory (backed by state punishment) census who survived the European War/Holocaust and see what they think about it? I have.

In Israel today, there is/are censuses the purpose of which are to identify who are Israeli Jews versus who are Israeli Arabs living in (the apartheid state of) Israel.

In conclusion, I am, in fact, thus relieved that Herr Harper is moving in the direction of replacing the Long Form mandatory census with a Long Form voluntary census. Imagine how much more dangerous and sinister it would be (see above) if he was moving instead in the direction of replacing the mandatory Short Form census with the mandatory Long Form census.

In my opinion, there are other and better ways for governments and communities to plan for future growth, changes and development. One that is animated with a human heart beating at its center. Not some inhuman, heartless census or survey that treats people as if all they are is numbers and data: like in the military or in the death camps of World War II Europe.

Please consider it.

I can think of a counterexample for why good statistical information is important. In France, it's pretty widely acknowledged that there's a problem with racial discrimination. The trouble is, nobody knows exactly how much of a problem it is because it is currently illegal for the government to collect statistics about ethnic origin or religion. Government has resisted doing much about it in part because there's no way to tell if any progress is being made. What gets measured is something for which you can hold someone accountable.

What I was pointing out is that statistics and raw data are value neutral, not an unqualified good in all and every circumstance. It depends on how that information is used or abused.

When one loses sight of the people/human beings this information and government are supposed to serve, watch out, as this could lead to cases of horrific abuse.

In the case of France, as I have suggested, federal authorities should meet person to person with the affected communities and together, they could/should construct a policy that will be humane and effective to address the problem(s). Rather than the government dictating (with little or no direct human input from the affected communities) authoritatively/dictatorially from the top down.

Harper backs down on long form census.

So please tell us again which Canadian government gave the contract to the USA Lockheed Martin defence contractor for the Canadian census?

Anti-census crusader not satisfied with federal axing of long form

But Sandra Finley, the Saskatoon activist who made national headlines for going to court over her refusal to fill out the 2006 census, is unimpressed.

She and others have balked at the Statistics Canada-led process because of the fact the agency bought software from defence manufacturer Lockheed Martin back in 2003.

Although the agency insisted before the 2006 census that only federal employees would have access to the data collected, that did not assuage Finley and others who protested the link to Lockheed. The short census will remain mandatory for all Canadians and will still be based on Lockheed Martin technology.

"As far as I'm concerned, my objection to them contracting out to Lockheed Martin is stronger than ever based on what I've learned over seven years," said Finley, who is still in court with Statistics Canada.

"When it comes to the 2011 census...I don't think I'll be in a position to comply with the law because what they're doing is so morally repugnant."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/anti-census-poster-crusade...

sound cannon | water cannon | jet fighters

the money is there | to shore up privilege
during the decline | keeping small people | down
we disappear | into absent numbers

no longer counted | by Conservative government

Yet despite all this Cross Conservative Checkup has a puff piece about conrad black? I guess that was a much bigger news item this week, stupid now useless shilling CBC.

The problems with no census is no DATA at all. And I agree the complaints should be that it is lockheed martin software. That is the privacy concern in this whole mess, but as usual that is the one being overlooked. Because as mentioned, the short form is still mandatory. I have a hard time to understand what kind of wedge issue they are hoping in all this. Or to put it in perspective, no motive by this government isn't in some way related to furthering the 1% that already own everything. Full stop. They have never shown anything with regards to good will toward the citizens. Its all optics while the real bills get passed clandestine by a useless opposition leader (some would say almost too easily).

Apologize to the First Nations, then refuse to sign the indigenous rights at the UN, The gun registry they still haven't done anything about, the tough on crime...keep raising it from the dead and claim the left stopped it BS, and on and on and on. But we have important issues just sliding right by the media and the Liberals (Iggy the plant to be specific). People arrested for no reason but this is OK??? No comment. That is taking away our rights to free assembly, but it doesn't warrant the media attention of changing the lyrics in Oh Canada, or the distracting sideshow known as Helena Guergis. Not found guilty you say? Wow big surprise, but it did take our mind off of other issues didn't it.

The summer session is where they trot out their most devious of plots. Hoping it goes even further under the radar.

The sad part is it works.

If you are going to read Gordon Clark's piece - and since he singles me out for special criticism - I suggest taking a look at my response. The hilarious think about Clark is that he uses information from the Long Form Census in his bio to brag about his accomplishments. This guy is totally clueless. It's a classic Daily Show moment. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad...

http://www.eaves.ca/2010/07/13/irony-defined/

Stockwell Day:

Soooo ... It would appear that Doris thinks it is "chilling" to be a Jew.

And then there's all the stupidity about your neighbours ever knowing how you answered the census, o' course.

Personally, I'd much rather see my neighbour surrounded by riot cops for hours, intimidated, cuffed, dragged off, and detained for hours on end as a result of visiting The Keg. Thanks, Stephen Harper! Thanks a bunch!

"First, they came for The Keggers ..."

I'm in favour of the long form census.  And I would dearly love to embarrass the Cons for making it voluntary.

Facebook would come in handy but I don't have an account and have no interest in getting one.

But if I had a Facebook account, I would create a page that people could join if they promise to recycle and not fill out the long form census if it remains voluntary.

If enough Canadians signed up to boycott the census the whole project would be wasted.  The results would mean next to nothing.  And the business community and the corporations, who also use the census, would be furious with the Cons.

Perhaps a Babbler who has a Facebook account will set up such a page.  It might be worth the effort.

Much as I loathe "Can't see the light of", Herr Harper and the Fed Cons, as someone with libertarian anarchist egalitarian grassroots democracy leanings, here's my take:

No, he thinks a government agency (Stats Can) asking people questions about their religious beliefs and ethnic backgrounds, is chilling.

See my above post.

NO its right here

http://www.nationalpost.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=485124..(Yeah I know what I linked to).

“Earnings of full-time full-year earners rose for those at the top of the earnings distribution, stagnated for those in the middle and declined for those at the bottom,” Statistics Canada said in its report Thursday on changes since 1980 in median earnings of individuals, the level at which as many are earning more as less.

“As was the case during the 1980s and the 1990s, earnings grew faster between 2000 and 2005 among workers in the upper segments of the earnings distribution than among those at the bottom,” it said.

Ted Wannell, a senior Statistics Canada analyst, said the available international data suggest increasing earning inequality is not exclusive to Canada. The evidence suggests it’s happening in other countries and to an even greater extent in the United States.

The tax system, however, has helped to reduce the widening gap in incomes, according to the report from the census, which for the first time includes after-tax incomes as well.

The tax system hasn’t completely offset what has been a substantial widening in employment earnings but has come close to doing so, Wannell said, noting that when total incomes and not just earnings are included, the gap has barely widened over the past quarter century.

“So the tax and transfer system does do a lot to equalize the distribution of well-being in the country,” he said.

Frmrsldr that is the reason they don't like it.  The post did a reasonable analysis using the statscan data and it shows how the tax system helps to stem some of the corruption of the system by being progressive. It also shows stuff like the wideing chasm, the education level and where they live. This is all very important and why the census HAS TO BE MANDATORY

Without it we have no way of knowing what is happening and the tax system can be shifted to put more bruden on the poor. Whne you have the rich earning 16% more but the poor being shafted so much that in 25 years the middle income(median not the average) is only a buck a week higher it says a lot. This will all be gone if it is volountary.

Go see the reason given by Kadys luiveblog on CBC its such a farce. The only place supporting thsi corrupt government is the Fraser. They couldn't even get the CD Howe to back them on it.

The fact that both my and the Cons' views converge on this issue is for different reasons and is coincidental.

The only thing they've changed is they made the Long Form census voluntary. The Short Form census is still mandatory.

Even if Herr Harper made both censuses voluntary, he would also have to control the internet, communications and transportation infrastructure and people's right to communicate and gather/associate peacefully.

Let's say there are no censuses, and people, organizations and agencies can't get such income/income distribution aggregate anonymous info from Revenue Canada through FOIA requests.

People will still communicate with each other and form organizations that will discover that there is a growing gap between rich and poor and a growing number of poor.

It would be pretty difficult for the government to achieve this. If they did, there will be Marxists who will argue, "If they want to do this, so much the better", as it will make a workers' democratic revolution all the more likely.

Were events to play out this way, I can see no fault with the Marxist line of reasoning.

You cannot even access Revenue Canada taxation inoformation as a government departmtnment let alone a private citizen through a FOIA request. I have the fleeling that you, frmsldr, have never tried doing any reasearch that required any demographic accuracy. Stats Can is the primary source for getting reliable statistics regarding this country and all federal departments use it as well as countless of other who need to study and assess what the current or past status is under numerous subjects.

As for the claim that Stats Can will jail or fine those that don't comply, I call bullsjot. I have never heard of anyone prosecuted for not complying and I think you would be hard pressed to find a case. I know that my work was severely hampered by failure to comply by the rules for gathering statistics. That group did not get fined or penalized in any way.

As reported yesterday no one has ever been jailed.

People will still communicate with each other and form organizations that will discover that there is a growing gap between rich and poor and a growing number of poor.

OK I'm outta here. There is no way to get the point across. If by showing how government uses stats to determine policy can be substituted by us knowing our plight and talking about it in an echochamber is reason enough to stop collecting stats thenI am baffled. I give up.

Jack Layton is holding a press conference in Ottawa Thursday morning about the census, and the NDP has launched a web campaign on it as well.  See:  http://www.ndp.ca/census

I know that. Being the case, why isn't this dropped off the statute book? The threat of a fine still makes filling out the form if ordered to, mandatory. BTW, by "noncompliance" I meant only not filling out the census, not anything else.

It amazes me how changing the Long Form census from mandatory to voluntary has made some people hysterical:

It's got people painting paranoid pictures that this is all part of a pre-planned conspiracy by the Cons to corrupt Canadian society from a 'democracy' into a dictatorship.

Personally, I think this was an off the cuff idea by Herr Harper to increase his shrinking political base and boost flagging Con(servative) popularity.

I didn't ground "us knowing our plight and talking about it in an echochamber [a]s [a] reason ... to stop collecting stats ..."

I grounded it in the argument some people were making about how changing the mandatory Long Form census into a voluntary one was the first step down the inevitable path to dictatorship.

My argument was that even if Herr Harper turned Canada into a dictatorship and declared himself Der Fuerer, people would organize to resist: Harper would not be able to do this in a political vacuum and without any resistance, was the point I was making.

If personal data is removed from the aggregate macro data during the first stage by Stats Can, then how is it possible for the federal government to redress some negative imbalance among rural communities like (let's say for the hell of it) Bella Bella, B.C. and Wa Wa, ON (among others)? According to the way Stats Can is set up, isn't that impossible?

I hate to be a cynic, but you know what bothers me?

If it is categorically wrong to change the Long Form census from mandatory to voluntary, then why didn't Jacques, Gilles and Iggy make announcements of their own immediately after the Cons announced the change?

Why did they wait to see where the (political) winds were blowing and for this issue to start to 'snowball' a bit before they jumped on the 'Oppose the Change to the Long Form Census' bandwagon.

I don't have much patience when it comes to political expediency/hypocracy.

As long as FRMSLDR either does not recongize the purpose of the census and the role it plays in public planning or does not recognize the purpose and value of public planning any argument about its value is pointless and will just go round in circles. The best that might come of it would be to isolate which of these issues is the obstacle-- at moments it seems the issue is a denial of the value of any public planning beyond the most right wing I have ever heard and at others there seems to be no understanding of how census informaiton informs the process.

There is also in this thread frequent disconnects on other issues as well including a failure to recognize the data difference between a self selected sample and what is in effect a control sample used for all other samples taken out of this data-- losing that control sample effectively not only wipes out the integrity of the direct data from the census but any data derived from polling. As others have pointed out the census data in terms of demographical balance is critical to the process of creating any valuable data out of polling or otherwise self selecting studies.

The answer to this question will help simplify and clarify the issue on social scientific planning:

Can science solve/reverse our destructive relationship with the environment?

Filling out the census is like voting in an election. When people do not fill out the census, they are essentially telling the government that their lives dont matter; when government tell citizens they dont have to fill out the census, they are essentially saying that they dont care about the lives of the citizens. Instead of having data, we would be subjected to more political propagenda, non factual based arguments and cheap manipulation from politicans.

I hate to be rude, but you know what bothers me?  It's people who have little interest in electoral politics pretending to be experts in strategy, and then invoking this expertise to level allegations of hypocrisy.

Frmrsldr, if everyone piles on at the same time, there's no sense of momentum.  This is about changing the decision, not being the first to take the correct position and denounce the mistake.  First you send out the MPs, later on the leaders and premiers.

And if the objective is to get people to actually change their decision, you have to leave them the teensiest bit of a graceful out.

I would have thought Layton's strategic sense would have earned him the benefit of the doubt on this by now.

It can certainly help but that is not clear.

Would any of us eating this month solve or reverse our destructive relationship with the earth?

Perhaps not. But is that an argument in favour of starvation for people who write on babble?

I am quite surprised by the number of non-sequitors you have been advancing in this argument.

Certainly, the maintenance of statistics can be helpful to people, is not harmful to the environment. I agree we need to avoid harmful practices but I am not willing to say we should limit all our practices to ones that help either. Does not seem like a reasonable test. On the otherhand statistics have everything to do with maintaining sustainable practices. We also know that when practices are not socially sustainable they can lead to environmentally unsustainable practices. In short, I'm afraid you are not contributing positively to your argument.

Would anyone have known that climate change was a problem, if it hadn't been measured?

OO-- it is not reasonable either to expect all politicians to understand the implications of every announcement and what is at stake first off. That they take the time to look in to what is happening, weigh the issues, gather the facts and then respond is something I can respect. This is especially true when they are facing a government that has no motives other than the political and the ideological and appears to make things up as they go along.

We have a serious problem in our very sophisticated society expecting that everyone know everything about everything first off and too afraid to stop, admit they don't know it all and then gather the facts. If the government did this there would be less damage that is unintended. This current form of governance piles unintended damage on to willful vandalism and sabotage such that there are many days when observers can't even tell the difference.

As for Layton-- you can also recognize that he is a person who learns from mistakes. The NDP in his first campaign as leader spoke out of their rear ends on several critical policies and got criticized for it (I am speaking about tax proposals to take everyone under 18k off the tax rolls but this effectively wiped out the tax advantages for seniors, disabled etc.). Since then the NDP in general and Layton in particular have done a very good job of making sure they know what they are talking about before they speak. I do not want them to change this. Being a little slow off the mark on somethigns is less of a deal than rushing in and getting it wrong. Some of the respect the NDP is earning these days is because of this. Some of the problems the Cons are facing are because of a lack of this.

That is worth pointing out I think.

All good points, Sean.

Good question. The long form census changes were snuck in during prorogation. 

NDP Leader Jack Layton says he's prepared to sit down with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to reach a compromise on saving the mandatory long-form census.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/07/29/layton-harper-census-reform.html#ixzz0v5jDGVEU

Layton's news release is below, and you can watch the news conference on demand at CPAC here.

He's asking for a meeting with the Prime Minister "to help him find a solution to the problem he's created".  For example, amending s.31 of the Statistics Act to remove the penalty of jail time.

Closing for length. Please start a new thread!