Bill C-568 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Statistics Act (mandatory long-form census)

This enactment amends the Statistics Act to provide that the census of population taken under section 19 of the Act must be taken using a long-form census questionnaire that conforms substantially, in length and substantive scope, to the census starting in 1971 and at intervals thereafter to meet the requirements of that section. This enactment also removes the punishment of imprisonment for a person convicted of the offence of providing false or misleading information.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

At present, Mr. Bouchard, this is the last meeting for February.

After we come back from our constituency week, on March 1 the minister will be here on usage-based billing with the CRTC; Thursday, March 3, will be the Investment Canada Act; Tuesday, the eighth, will be Bill C-568, the census bill; and Thursday, the tenth, will be the Investment Canada Act.

Then we'll go to a constituency week again. We come back and it's Bill C-568. Then it will be the Investment Canada Act on March 24, Bill C-568 on the 29th; and the Investment Canada Act on the 31st.

Does anybody else need clarity? Is there any other debate? Okay.

A recorded vote has been requested. I'll leave that to the clerk.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

Without any further ado, then, we'll go to the officials for their opening remarks. I hope the committee is fine with the fact that I've given the officials some latitude because of the complexity of the Investment Canada Act and the fact that we're trying to do a full review and give the minister the advantage of Parliament's input. They will go ahead for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Madame Marie-Josée Thivierge, please go ahead. You have the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay, thank you very much, gentlemen.

Members, please remember to send to the clerk your witnesses for Bill C-568, please.

Seeing no other business, this meeting is adjourned.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to move an amendment in my attempt for a compromise. My amendment would be that the concurrent meetings would be with the CRTC decision and the study of the Investment Canada Act, followed by the committee meetings for Bill C-568.

What I'm doing is substituting Bill C-568 out for the Investment Canada Act for concurrent meetings. And I'm more than happy to support that change, obviously.

Am I allowed to do that or not?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Further to the conversation we're having in terms of priorities, on the issue of concurrent meetings, the Investment Canada Act has been put forward as an urgent priority by all the other parties. So the motion as it stands basically puts off any decision, report, or recommendation that the committee might come up with, because it insists that for some reason it's concurrent with a census private member's bill, which I'm not sure I understand the urgency of at this point. I can understand that there is a difference of opinion and that members of this committee may feel strongly that this private member's bill is the right way to go, but you'd be hard pressed to attach any kind of urgency to passing this private member's bill through a committee prior to May 12, which is the deadline for getting it through.

On the other hand, I go back to several months of commentary on the Investment Canada Act, probably years of commentary on the Investment Canada Act for the NDP, articulating how critical it is that we study it immediately. Member after member of the New Democratic Party insisted that the Investment Canada Act should be studied immediately.

We had a motion to study it immediately in this committee, but it was defeated by the opposition parties, with the swing vote being carried by the New Democratic member. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I don't understand it. But now we're dealing with a motion where we're actually pushing it down behind a private member's bill. We can all probably agree that while we may have a difference of opinion in terms of the substance of the bill, the urgency of the bill is completely political. There's nothing urgent that that bill is going to accomplish by coming through our committee. So I put forward that I think it's incumbent on us as a committee to pick our priorities carefully.

If we actually want to get beyond the partisan conversations that we're having, the partisan tone in Parliament, if we really want to move forward together and work together, we have to start focusing on what our priorities are, what is going to make sense from the standpoint of the good of the country. When a minister is carefully studying an issue like the CRTC decision, I think it's difficult to argue that the committee has anything to add to that equation by having meetings ahead of the other issues on the table.

Secondly, I think it's impossible to argue that Bill C-568 is on a par with the Investment Canada Act, as far as an issue of urgency for the committee to study. I think that's absolutely impossible to argue, so I do not understand at all why we would put those as concurrent studies.

I say it honestly, Brian, in the interests of trying to work together. I don't understand how that—

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

No, Mr. Rota, listen, this is the exact same thing I said in our session prior to us going public in terms of what I think our priority should be. I'm saying Bill C-568--

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to speak to this motion. The motion deals with the Investment Canada Act and to begin with it in our next set of meetings, excluding the meeting set aside for Bill C-501, whenever it comes.

To be frank with you, this is interesting, being from Burlington, across the bay from Stelco and Dofasco, both now foreign-owned, one having difficulty, the other not. In fact, one announced an expansion, an increase in staff, and more investment. So I'm very interested in finding out why one investment in the exact same industry on the same street is successful and one is not. I am looking forward to it. I think it's an important discussion.

I can tell you, Mr. Chair, that of all the calls I get—there are lots of calls on individual problems, of course, and those are case issues and on broader policy—the vast majority have to do with either CRA or Investment Canada, to be honest with you, and what's happening with investment.

People will ask me, “How can your government allow for foreigners to come in and buy this?” My response, Mr. Chair, to be perfectly frank with you, is very polite, but I do ask them about what needs to happen for Canadians to be investing in Canadian companies. Why are Canadians, seeing what's happening in the world...? Why didn't Dofasco, for example, know that there were going to be amalgamations in the steel business? Why? They're a very big player, a very good player, with a quality product. How does their saying go, that steel is their business, but people are number one, or whatever that saying was? So why do Canadian companies wait to be sold?

Let's be frank about the Investment Canada Act. This government is the only government that ever turned down an investment. It's happened twice now. The potash one was the recent one, and a few years ago the Canadarm manufacturer--I forget the name of the company--was under threat of being sold to a foreign entity.

I watched a show last night on the CBC, or whatever. They had a roving reporter in Winnipeg and they were asking people why they weren't paying any attention to federal politics. I think today is an example of why people aren't paying attention to federal politics. There were lots of comments about how we should be working together, and so on and so forth.

At the end of the day, I think what the parliamentary secretary has proposed in terms of a priority for Canadians...it's a look at what we're doing in the Investment Canada Act. We came to a conclusion among all of us that we should study the Investment Canada Act. The parliamentary secretary indicated that people have talked about it in the past. He's quoted them. I don't have those quotes, but he's quoted other members of Parliament from other parties. It's a reasonable request.

The part to deal with the CRTC decision comes next in his proposal, and it's still in front of the length of time that's allowed for that decision, which is coming out at the beginning of March. So there is time for this committee to deal with those issues.

Is anybody paying attention? It's unbelievable. Are you paying attention to me? Oh, that's very good.

There is time to deal with the issues. Then, again, we talk about Bill C-568--

Statistics Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

It being 3:10 p.m., pursuant to order made on Tuesday, December 7 the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-568 under private members' business.

Call in the members.

The House resumed from December 3 consideration of the motion that Bill C-568, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (mandatory long-form census), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Minister of State and Chief Government Whip]

Madam Speaker, there have been consultations among all parties, and if you seek it, I believe you will find there is unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, the deferred recorded division on the motion for second reading of C-568, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (mandatory long-form census), currently scheduled to be held immediately before the time provided for Private Members' Business on December 8, 2010, be held instead at the conclusion of oral questions on December 8, 2010; and that any further recorded divisions deferred to Wednesday, December 8, 2010, pursuant to Standing Orders 66(2), 93(1), 97.1 or 98(4) be held instead at the conclusion of oral questions on the said Wednesday; and that the time used for the taking of the deferred recorded divisions be added to the time provided for Government Orders that day.

Statistics Act

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased today to speak to Bill C-568, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (mandatory long-form census).

I will read the summary of the bill so that the viewing public can understand it:

This enactment amends the Statistics Act to provide that the census of population taken under section 19 of the Act must be taken using a long-form census questionnaire that conforms substantially, in length and substantive scope, to the census starting in 1971 and at intervals thereafter to meet the requirements of that section. This enactment also removes the punishment of imprisonment for a person convicted of the offence of providing false or misleading information.

I congratulate the member, who is a long-standing member of the House, for introducing this bill.

When the government announced its initiative many months ago, I got the impression that most people, even Conservatives that I talked to among members of the public, felt it was the most boneheaded move the government had made since the killing of the prison farms.

Generally speaking, the public settles down based on ideology and their voting patterns. When the government of their choice introduces something, they try to understand what the government is doing. By and large, they find a way to accept, if they are Conservatives, what their government is doing and work out a rationale for it.

However, these are two issues, which I find from talking to Conservatives, that just leave them puzzled. They cannot explain why the government has done it and they do not agree that the prison farms should have been eliminated. They certainly do not agree that the census should be changed.

That aside, many organizations have the same view on this matter. There are business organizations across the country that require the statistics provided by the census in order to conduct proper business operations.

As the Liberal member mentioned previously, in his attempt to find out why the government was doing this, he looked at the cost of it and said that the government is spending $30 million more to get less reliable data. It does not make sense.

Then I looked back to a question that I asked on September 28. We were looking at best practices. I like to talk about best practices. That is the hallmark of Conservatives. Whatever line of business we are talking about, computers, IT issues, it is always best practices and they are lined up with Conservatives.

Well, the best practices here would seem to be the United States. The Conservatives seem to want to follow where the United States is going, and they are always six months or six years behind. I do not know whether the member has checked this out or not, but back in 2003 when George Bush was the president, the Americans tried this experiment. The U.S. Census Bureau conducted an experiment and found that the data was degraded so much that fixing it would be too expensive and it abandoned the idea.

What sort of planning is the government involved in and what sort of planning did it do to develop this approach?

We know what the approach was. It was a knee-jerk ideological approach to the problem. The Conservatives had a preconceived notion. Their Conservative ideology tells them that this census is an irritant to a certain number of their supporters, and they probably heard from a few of them over the years.

I am sure it is the libertarian part of the party that is flexing its muscles at this point. The libertarians have not had a lot of support from the government over the last four or five years as it races to recoup as much of the centre ground from the Liberals that it could get its hands on. Every once in a while the Conservatives throw some red meat at the libertarians in their group.

That is the only reason the Conservatives would have taken this measure. The public does not support what they are doing.

The Joe Clark government seemed to have suicidal tendencies from day one. That was the government that started sending pension cheques to federal prisoners. We have not seen that suicidal tendency in the Conservative Party over the years, but we are certainly seeing it now.

Practically every business organization in the country is opposed to the government's approach on the census. School boards are opposed to the idea. Pretty much each and every province is opposed to the idea. Members over there might be able to tell me that one province is onside with respect to this issue. My home province of Manitoba is not in favour of this approach to the census. If the government is trying to get allies, if it is trying to build support, then it does not make any sense to torch its relationships.

We support this bill because it seeks to reverse the ideologically-based decision of the Conservative government to cancel the long form census. It would remove imprisonment of a person convicted of providing false and misleading information. That is an issue. Nobody has ever spent time in jail for failing to provide information with respect to the census, but the idea that it was possible may have weighed heavily on some people when they were asked to provide information.

While we support the bill, it really does not go far enough. Bill C-583 put forward by our colleague from Windsor West goes one step further. It would enshrine in law the primacy of evidence-based decision making over political manoeuvring of the likes we have seen with the government. We have seen political manoeuvring by the government not only with respect to this issue but with respect to a whole range of other areas. The Conservatives have fired people, sometimes people that they hired, who do not see things their way. They hired the victims' advocate three years ago and when he did not act the way he promised on victims' support, they simply fired him. They will get somebody who sees things their way.

As I have indicated, no Canadian has been imprisoned for failing to fill out the long form census. That would be removed if this bill were to pass. We have to remove political interference in the process. The chief statistician has to be able to do his or her job in an environment free of political meddling by an ideological government, certainly one like the Conservative government which is intent on suppressing evidence and information that contradicts its own narrow agenda.

Imagine the outrage from Canadians and the international community if the finance minister had interfered with the independence of the Governor of the Bank of Canada to set monetary policy. Why should we accept the government's heavy-handedness by interfering with our chief statistician's capacity to do his or her job?

As I have indicated, hundreds of individuals, organizations, businesses, governments from coast to coast, certainly an apolitical group of people have raised alarm bells about the terrible decision to cancel the long form census--

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very happy to address this matter. I had the pleasure of seconding Bill C-568 when my colleague from St. Paul's introduced it in the House. The bill follows up on a decision that the government first announced in June, and that was we would no longer have a mandatory long form census distributed, that it would become some sort of a survey that would be on a voluntary basis. Even though the decision was announced in June, it had been taken months before.

As soon as the decision was announced, after Parliament had conveniently shut down for the summer, reactions started. We had very strong reaction from Canada's partners in this federation, the provinces and the territories, indicating, in a great majority, that they thought the decision was wrong. Municipalities across the country said that they thought the decision was a wrong one, that we should not scrap the mandatory long form census. We had the same thing from universities and colleges across the country and various departments of universities involved with the science of statistics also decrying the decision, that this was not the way to go.

People representing churches throughout the country have also said that this is not the thing to do. Businesses, starting with the Bank of Canada, said that the decision would affect its ability to deliver programs. When it starts getting like that, we have to wonder what was behind such a decision.

A number of scientists came forward. Even the chief statistician felt that it was best to tender his resignation because of some of the statements from the government, which he could not support.

We have had reactions from across the world from statisticians and from organizations wondering what is going on. This flies in the face of an international agreement on the use of statistics and census that Canada is a party to, yet the government seems intent on not changing its mind.

The industry committee had two full days of hearings this summer, of which I was privileged to be part. An overwhelming number of the witnesses said that they wished the government would rescind the decision and that it would maintain the long form census in a mandatory manner.

Now we even have comments from federal government departments. As of yesterday, in a publication in the Canadian Press, Ms. Jennifer Ditchburn, through access to information, obtained some of the comments given to the government by various departments. The article stated:

Statistics Canada scrambled to assemble research last December on “the prime minister’s decision” and consulted data users across government. A briefing note drafted for the deputy minister at Industry Canada detailed the “specific consequences” of replacing the long questionnaire with a voluntary survey. And with the number of Canadians filling out the forms potentially decreasing by as much as 40 per cent, according to the memo, a number of other federal activities would feel the loss of data.

Here are some specific concerns of the departments. The Human Resources and Skills Development Canada commented:

Less reliable data would “compromise their ability” to determine EI eligibility, assess skills development and retraining, and apply the federal-provincial agreement on labour mobility.

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada commented:

Absence of reliable long-form data will not allow them to effectively manage, evaluate, and measure performance of programs in areas of aboriginal health, housing, education, and economic development.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada commented:

A broad range of programs dealing with selecting and settling immigrants, including a pan-Canadian agreement on foreign credentials would be hit. “A question in the long form on country of educational attainment specifically provides information to support this program”.

The conclusion that seems to come from the bureaucrats of our federal government service is:

It cannot be anticipated at this time if a successful resolution of these issues is even feasible to provide reasonable quality data at affordable cost.

The question remains, why did we do this if everybody and their brother were arguing that this was the wrong decision?

We initially thought it might be a matter of concern with privacy, so we asked the Privacy Commissioner. The answer was no, that there had never been a leak of any data collected through the long form census. Obviously that is not the concern.

We keep hearing that it was to ensure that Canadians did not go to jail. No Canadian has gone to jail over this in the history of the census taking. Obviously that is not the reason either.

We then started to hear the experts. The experts confirmed that if we were to have a voluntary form, as opposed to a mandatory one, the information collected would be biased and of a lesser quality, especially within small communities. The argument they put forward was that if it were a voluntary format, those earning more money, the very well to do, would seek anonymity and would not fill it out. Also, those who felt more vulnerable in our society would not fill it out for fear or whatever. We now will have a reading of our society that is appropriate, not equal and not accurate. The inequities of our society will no longer be measured appropriately.

By the way, this is not a theory. The U.S. tried scrapping the mandatory long form census, or the equivalent, under the George Bush administration. The U.S. reversed itself because it realized that the information it was gathering was not as accurate or as reliable as before.

One would think the Conservatives are doing this to save money, as that would be in line with their philosophy. However, no, the government is going to spend $30 million more.

We have to wonder why the government is doing this. It has been proven wrong, according to what the U.S. has done. Almost everybody in Canada is saying not to do this. We will be spending $30 million more to get information that is less reliable.

One conclusion that many of us are forced to arrive at, and we have heard it before, is that to facilitate a shift from evidence-based decision making, which has traditionally been the way governments in our country have reached their decisions, the government wants to ensure that it does not have as high-quality information in order to have ideologically driven decision making. That is where the rubber hits the road. We cannot allow that.

This is why we have members of Parliament in the House saying no. We have had a motion in the House where the majority of the elected representatives of the people of the country have said no to this. However, the government has said that it will stick to its guns.

We now have a bill in the House and I suspect and I hope that the government will respect the will of the House when the bill passes, as I believe it will next Wednesday when it will be read in at second reading.

We are doing this because to move from evidence-based decision making to ideologically-based decision making scrambles the ability of government to have accurate information. The impact of this on municipalities, universities, provinces and business is untold. It is a shameful decision. I hope the government accepts the fact that the country wants it to reverse itself on this.

However, if the government does not, then we will have to force it to. If we cannot do it that way, when the Liberal Party forms government, we will ensure the census reverts back to a long form mandatory method to accurately read the snapshot of Canada in order to design programs to address the inequities in our society.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the bill today. Let me say right off the top that the rural parts of this country very much need a long form census. We need to know who lives here. We need to know where they live. We need to ensure that services like health care, education, employment assistance and so on are provided fairly and equally right across this country.

For urban areas of course the long form census is just as important, but I am going to keep my remarks mostly to my riding and to the issues that we face and why the long form census is so important to my part of northern Ontario.

Therefore I am very pleased to speak today on Bill C-568. It is an act to amend the Statistics Act in which we are dealing with the long form census.

The New Democratic Party is generally supportive of the bill because it seeks to reverse the ideologically based decision of the Conservative government to cancel the long form census. The bill also removes the punishment of imprisonment for a person convicted of providing false or misleading information.

While I am supportive of the bill and while my party is supportive of the bill, it is also important to note that I do not think it goes far enough. Bill C-583 introduced by my colleague from Windsor West goes one step further by enshrining into law the primacy of evidence-based decision making over political manoeuvring, the likes of which we have seen with the Conservative government.

To be clear, both elements of Bill C-568 are fully supported. For the record one more time, not a single Canadian has been imprisoned for failing to fill out the long form census. The imprisonment element should be removed right now.

However we need to go further by removing political interference from Statistics Canada's ability to do its job and provide an accurate picture of our country. The Chief Statistician must be able to do his or her job in an environment free of political meddling by an ideological government intent on suppressing evidence and information that contradicts, in this case, the narrow Conservative agenda.

We can just imagine the outrage from the national and international community if the government were to meddle in the independence of the Bank of Canada, for example. It would not be tolerated.

Therefore why should we accept the government's heavy-handedness when it comes to interfering with our Chief Statistician in his or her ability to do the job?

Hundreds of individuals, organizations, businesses and governments coast to coast raised the alarm bells because of the terrible decision to cancel the long form census. Despite the unsubstantiated claims by Conservative MPs about mythical complaints about the intrusiveness of the long form census, we know that the majority of citizens support and understand the need for the long form census.

Losing the long form census will have a detrimental impact on our communities in Thunder Bay—Rainy River. Let us just look at the first nations communities for example. There are 10 first nations in Thunder Bay—Rainy River. While they are connected by the road system, some are very far away from the main road, and it is important to have an accurate picture.

If we do not have a long form census that asks the kinds of questions that it does, we may not know what is going on in these isolated communities.

For example, without a long form census we would not know that the Couchiching First Nation, as of this past September, had 22 students who had graduated from high school but did not have the ability to go on to post-secondary education because the funding was not there.

We would also not know that in that same community last year it sent its very first student to medical school. It had its first PhD. return to the community.

Here we are making advances right across my riding and I would suggest that is duplicated right across the country.

Just when first nations are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, particularly as far as education is concerned, the taps get turned off. Without a long form census, we do not know and we will not know that is happening. It is important for all of our communities to have the input into the long form census to protect them and to let all Canadians know, to give all Canadians a snapshot of what is going on in those communities.

When we see the importance of the long form census, is it any wonder that the government was taken to court on the issue? It seems as if the government is trying everything, making relentless efforts to shut down any source of credible data that provides any sort of objective evidence necessary for developing good public policy.

A short while ago on Parliament Hill, parliamentarians and members of Canada's very professional public service were invited to a special panel discussion on a very timely topic, evidence versus ideology of Canadian public policy. The event was sponsored by the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, the Association of Canadian Financial Officers and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.

The event aimed to launch a public debate regarding the current state and possible future of evidence-based policy making in Canada. There were a number of distinguished speakers on the panel, and the discussion was fascinating because these panellists and participants acknowledged that there has always been a role for ideology in public policy. However, they noted that in the past two years we have seen the emergence of a worrisome pattern.

First, the government gagged public servants and fired others who dared to disagree with it or give it policy recommendations that did not fit into its ideologically driven agenda.

Second, the government cancelled surveys and the long form census to ensure that statisticians, economists, academics and other professionals did not have access to objective data that provided damning evidence of the government's policy failures.

I am just guessing, but I suppose the object is to put it all into the private domain and let private companies do the work of the long form census. They do sometimes. For example earlier this week there was a BDO Dunwoody study about my pension protection bill, Bill C-501. BDO Dunwoody asked CEOs from across Canada what they thought of the bill. More than half of the CEOs who replied said it is a good bill and Parliament should move it ahead. Those are the kinds of things that the government should be finding out about legislation that happens in this place.

I fear that the Conservative government is dragging the country backward, and a clear majority of Canadians are saying, “No, you cannot drag us backward”. A majority of parliamentarians in the House support restoring the long form census, protecting the professional role of Canada's Chief Statistician and removing the threat of imprisonment in the act. Yet the minority continues to thumb its nose at the majority will of Parliament, an insult to democracy, an insult to this place itself.

Bill C-568 is specific to the government's decision to cancel the long form census. I believe the House needs to have a wider debate about the government's treatment of public servants; its setting of public policy based on belief, not public interest; its rejection of evidence-based public policy; its attempt to shut down public access to objective data; and its attempt to stop credible analysis of its failed policies. This will not work. We are on to the Conservatives, and so are Canadians.

I offer my party's support for the bill and urge the House to bring other necessary changes to protect our professional public service from the kind of pervasive political interference by ministers and their political staff. We need to end this trend and we need to do it quickly before we are dragged any—

The House resumed from November 5 consideration of the motion that Bill C-568, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (mandatory long-form census), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Royal Recommendation--Bill C-568--Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons on November 5, 2010, concerning the requirements for a royal recommendation for Bill C-568, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (mandatory long-form census), standing in the name of the hon. member for St. Paul's.

I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for having drawn this matter to the attention of the House as well as the member for York South—Weston for his comments.

In raising this issue, the parliamentary secretary explained that Bill C-568 would add two requirements to the Statistics Act. First, it would prescribe that in 20% of the cases, the long form census questionnaire be used and second, that the questions in the long form questionnaire be similar in length and scope to the ones contained in the 1971 census. He stated that in his view, this would constitute a new obligation for Statistics Canada given that even though the statutory authority for including a long form census questionnaire already exists, Bill C-568 would make its use mandatory instead of discretionary. He also argued that this requirement would compel the government to spend a minimum of $50 million. He concluded that since Bill C-568 would alter the conditions and qualifications of Statistics Canada's existing mandate in addition to imposing a new statutory obligation, a royal recommendation is required.

In support of his view, the parliamentary secretary made reference to a series of precedents involving bills that were found by the Chair to require a royal recommendation because they were either changing the purpose of a spending authority or adding a new function to an existing mandate.

In his intervention, the member for York South—Weston argued that Bill C-568 does not change the current mandate of Statistics Canada, nor does it add a new responsibility or a new function to the department. He contended that the bill only requires Statistics Canada to fulfill its existing mandate. He also argued that, contrary to the arguments raised by the parliamentary secretary, Bill C-568 would not entail additional expenses; in fact, he claimed that it would actually cost less.

The Chair has examined carefully the provisions of Bill C-568, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (mandatory long-form census) as well as the Statistics Act and the precedents enumerated by the parliamentary secretary.

The precedents cited by the parliamentary secretary involved bills that required a royal recommendation because they were proposing new purposes or new functions not currently authorized. Such is not the case for Bill C-568 since it does not appear to be adding to or expanding the current mandate of Statistics Canada.

This mandate may be found in paragraphs (a) and (c) of section 3 of the Statistics Act, which reads as follows:

3. There shall continue to be a statistics bureau under the Minister, to be known as Statistics Canada, the duties of which are

(a) to collect, compile, analyse, abstract and publish statistical information relating to the commercial, industrial, financial, social, economic and general activities and condition of the people;...

(c) to take the census of population of Canada and the census of agriculture of Canada as provided in this Act;

With regard to the issue of costs associated with the mandatory use of the long form as prescribed by Bill C-568, the key question for the Chair is whether what the bill proposes constitutes a new appropriation of public funds.

Section 19 of the Statistics Act states:

A census of population of Canada shall be taken by Statistics Canada in the month of June in the year 1971, and every fifth year thereafter in a month to be fixed by the Governor in Council.

In my view, this section, along with section 3 cited earlier, constitutes the statutory spending authority for Statistics Canada to conduct the census using either the short or the long form questionnaire.

Bill C-568 would require the Chief Statistician to include a long form questionnaire in 20% of the cases whenever a population census is conducted.

Even though there is now no such requirement in the Statistics Act, the Chief Statistician is currently authorized to include a long form questionnaire.

Therefore, it is my view that this would not constitute a new spending authority, nor would it alter the terms and conditions of Statistic Canada's mandate.

Consequently, from a strictly procedural point of view, the Chair cannot find that Bill C-568 requires the expenditure of public funds for a new and distinct purpose. I therefore rule that there is no requirement that the bill be accompanied by a royal recommendation and that the House may continue to consider it in accordance with the rules governing private members' business.

I thank the hon. members for their attention.

[Janet Davis]

My understanding as well is that Bill C-568 is before the House, which is proposing to deal with the punitive aspect, so I think the government could deal with that if it wished.