Bill C-626 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Statistics Act (appointment of Chief Statistician and long-form census)

This enactment amends the Statistics Act to establish a process to appoint the Chief Statistician of Canada. It also prescribes additional duties for the Chief Statistician and increases the independence of the Chief Statistician in carrying out his or her duties.
Further, it provides for a long-form questionnaire to be used for taking the census of population under that Act.

Removal of Imprisonment in Relation to Mandatory Surveys Act

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add my voice to this issue this evening. I must say, though, here we go again, yet another piecemeal legislative solution to a problem created by the same government's stubborn shortsightedness.

Worse yet, the Conservatives are contorting themselves to support this bill when they angrily railed against it just seven months ago. Members will remember how, on November 7 of last year, the Conservatives voted against Bill C-626 as proposed by the Liberal member for Kingston and the Islands.

They heckled the member for his work and said there was no reason for his bill to pass, but that bill contained this very same provision. Therefore, it is perplexing that the government would both oppose and support this measure. I am very interested to hear how some of the members opposite plan to justify their most recent flip-flop.

I do not say this lightly, but let us not forget that it was the current government that created the problem in the first place. It was the Conservative government that attacked the long form census and rendered the information collected scientifically skewed. It did this all based on the argument that scores of people were being put in jail because they refused to fill out the paperwork.

We have heard from my colleague. We have yet to see any people, other than the one individual, ever end up in jail and he went there clearly because he was making a point. Of course, this is not true. There were not a lot of people put in jail.

However, the Prime Minister never lets the facts get in the way of an ideological position. That is right, the government's 2010 decision to cancel the long form census was shortsighted and driven by pure ideology again. Short of old-fashioned incompetence, there is no other explanation for the long-standing process that has led us to this moment today.

The bill verifies what I am saying and tries to correct a handful of the many faults exposed and created by Conservative incompetence on this particular matter. Conservatives just do not get it. Perhaps this is a great example of why committees are supposed to actually consider the thoughts and opinions of expert witnesses.

Functioning committees are a device that most Conservative MPs would not recognize, but they do, indeed, serve a purpose. That is when we get a chance to thoroughly debate a variety of issues and look at legislation for the pros and cons. When committee members work together, they make the kinds of changes that are necessary.

Perhaps the Conservative members opposite would do well to remember this example the next time they vote down reasoned amendments from the opposition parties, en masse, in committee, which is done every single day that the House is sitting and committees are meeting.

The strangest part of this entire mess is that the measures contained within this legislation were also contained within the 2011 Conservative election platform. Clearly, the government is so embarrassed by its own legislative and policy ineptitude that it has relegated the matter to a private member's bill rather than in government legislation as a priority. We all have to be honest about how and why it is here.

Again, this is a trend with the government. We saw it with gun control and countless other subjects that are introduced through private members' bills rather than dealing with them properly within a solid piece of legislation that would be debated. However, I guess it would probably be subject to the same thing that 98 other pieces of legislation were, time allocation and all of the other things that mess up everybody's schedules.

What is the government so afraid of? I am trying to be fair. It is true that the government has messed up the policy process, the committee process, the collection of the census data and most of the legislative process, which is the reason there has been closure on legislation 98 times.

It is not all bad news, though. The Liberal caucus is committed, as it always has been, to evidence-based policy. In order to develop this evidence-based policy, we must have access to reliable and trustworthy data. This legislation is a small step in the right direction.

That is right, Liberals are okay with what is being proposed here today, and that is precisely why we proposed it last November through my colleague, the member for Kingston and the Islands. It was a good bill. We had expected the government to support it.

That would have shown some level of co-operation here in the House, but because it was a Liberal member who introduced it, there was no way the government was going to support it. Therefore, by piecemeal legislation, the Conservatives end up today, at the last minute before the House adjourns for the summer and for the next election, trying to get a private member's bill in to handle that other small part when it comes to sending someone to jail.

As embarrassing and uncomfortable as this must be for the Conservatives, who try to give the impression that they know what they are doing, I am actually happy to see their flip-flop. I only wish they would reverse themselves on a few more matters that could really make a difference for all Canadians, particularly their current attack on the Canada pension plan.

As members know, the Conservatives have long hated the Canada pension plan. They voted against it when it was created, and at every opportunity since. Now they want Canadians to think they have changed their ways and have seen the value of a voluntary Canada pension plan. However, that is nothing more than an avenue to start talking about it to say that we should eliminate the mandate of the Canada pension plan and have the whole thing voluntary. Companies could then contribute if they wanted to, and individuals could contribute if they wanted to.

Between having no CPP and the $30,000 Canadians will lose by having to wait until age 67 to get their pension, just imagine Canadians out there struggling. Clearly, they will be working much longer, because they will not have much of a pension plan if they do not have the Canada pension that they rely on today. Of course, Canadians are not so foolish as to believe this line.

I am still hopeful that the Prime Minister will one day make the leap and actually start to support seniors in this country rather than just leave them as an afterthought, or only when it is election time and he needs their votes as he makes promises.

The same could be said for the Conservatives' so-called economic action plan. Canada is halfway to yet another recession, consumer confidence is down and jobs are bleeding from the manufacturing sector, yet the government continues to spend taxpayer dollars on TV ads saying all is well. Even the member for Nepean—Carleton, the government's most accomplished and shameless spin master, has admitted that forcing bureaucrats to film partisan videos on the weekend was a bad idea, but I guess almost anyone can change.

This brings us to today. The government's most recent flip-flop is a real demonstration of the vison and leadership that the Conservatives have been able to bring to the table. In contrast, the Liberal caucus is committed to evidence-based policy, and we propose to put in place the tools needed to allow governments to do just that.

The government has its eyes closed and the Conservatives are hoping that no one is going to notice. However, Canadians are starting to see that the current government and Prime Minister are out of ideas.

The bill before us is the most recent in a very long line of government missteps and failures that are the benchmark of the Conservatives' record over the past decade. Canadians deserve better.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-625. The bill would amend the Statistics Act to protect the privacy of Canadians by requiring their consent for the release, which happens after 92 years, of the information they provide, in this case in a census-related household survey. It would also remove the jail term from two of the Statistics Act offence provisions, and would provide that a jail term would not to be imposed in default of payment of a fine imposed under those same provisions. I see no reason not to support these provisions, therefore, I support the bill.

However, I welcome the opportunity to discuss Statistics Canada again, only a month after debate on my private member's bill, Bill C-626 to restore the quality of data that the long form census gave us.

I want to thank the Conservative strategist who decided in this election year to create the opportunity to extend the public discussion about Statistics Canada and the value to Canada of the long form census. It is clear that Canadians are interested in this issue. In fact, there are articles now in the press overseas. The information in the long form census is important to our country.

My private member's bill, Bill C-626 on the long form census, also replaced jail term with a fine for those refusing to complete a mandatory survey. Conservative MPs voted against that. The penalties are what make a survey mandatory instead of voluntary.

I want to explain why a voluntary census cannot replace a mandatory one, and that is why we need to have some sort of penalty such as these fines, which will remain after this bill is passed if there is enough time in this Parliament. This is a statement that the Chief Statistician made as he resigned in 2010 when the Conservatives eliminated the long form census.

It is all about sample bias, and I want to explain what that is. Sample bias is about the people who are not counted when one does a survey. As an example, politicians often refer to the Ottawa bubble. What happens is a certain kind of people inhabit Parliament Hill and the surrounding area. If we only talk to one another, we have to realize that is not a representative sample of the country. We understand that here on Parliament Hill.

When members are back in their own communities, if they only read letters to the editor in their newspaper, that is also not a fair sample of the community. There is a bias. That is what scientists mean by “sample bias”. Politicians instinctively understand this, and I know the Conservative members of Parliament understand it. We know there is no substitute for knocking on doors and listening to a proper sample of people. We know we cannot just knock on doors in the daytime on weekdays because then we will still get a biased sample of the people we represent and want to listen to.

Does the threat of sample bias mean that all surveys need to have penalties for not filling them out? Is that the only way to do surveys? How could anybody do surveys if that were the case? No, it does not have to be like that. The mandatory long form census in Canada allows the other surveys to be voluntary. This cannot be emphasized enough. The mandatory long form census is the one that allows the other surveys that Statistics Canada and a whole bunch of organizations, businesses included, do to be voluntary. All other surveys can and do use the mandatory long form census to correct their sample bias.

Another way of thinking about this is the people who fulfill their civic duty to Canada and fill out the mandatory long form census give up their time so other surveys can reduce their sample bias without being mandatory. This is not a big burden in bother or privacy. One big survey every five years sent to one in five households means that on average our country asks us to answer the 50 questions on the long form census every 25 years. Compare that to all the private information honest citizens report on their income tax every year.

Canadians from across the country have mobilized around this issue because they know that accurate, reliable data from a mandatory long form census is necessary if they want to use resources wisely in business, but especially when it comes to government. Over 60 organizations endorsed my private member's bill, including the Canadian Association for Business Economics, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Medical Association. Reinstating the census has generated support from Canadians across the country. Thousands of Canadians wrote the government and their members of Parliament asking them to reinstate the long form census.

Reinstating the census has generated support from Canadians across the country. Thousands of Canadians wrote the government and their members of Parliament asking them to reinstate the long form census.

I would like to end by talking about the Conservative election promise to remove the jail term. The Conservative speakers in this House have said, and I will quote the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence:

Our government committed to the removal of jail-time penalties for not filling out mandatory surveys.

They talk about “our” government. Why, in the 46 long months of the Conservative majority government, has the government not slipped this one-page bill into one of the many omnibus bills containing hundreds of pages of legislation? It could have done it. Instead, I do not think the Conservatives are serious. They are putting the elimination of the jail term into a private member's bill in a Parliament that only has a few weeks to go.

I know that I am short of time, so I will conclude by saying that I call on the government to restore the place of facts and evidence in Canadian governments and their policies, in civil society, and in the economy to make sure that Canadians identify challenges and opportunities by measuring them and measuring the success or failure of our efforts and enterprise.

We need that for Canada to thrive, prosper, and lead the world in the 21st century.

Census

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from people across the country, particularly in Quebec and eastern Canada, asking Parliament to vote in favour of Bill C-626, an act to amend the Statistics Act, and to bring back the long form census, which would protect the integrity of the data and information collected by Statistics Canada and protect Statistics Canada from the political imperatives of the government of the day.

Statistics Canada

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be able to measure long-term trends.

Bill C-626 will be debated later today, a bill to restore the mandatory long-form census so that we have the trustworthy information we need to govern ourselves wisely.

Instead of voting it down, would the government consider a compromise to restore the long-form census but remove one or two of the questions that it says cause the most complaints? If not, is the government having a look at a move towards the systems used in some European countries where they have quality national statistics but no census?