Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 30th, 2014

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Is the national statistics council completely separate from the various advisory groups you were mentioning?

[Wayne Smith]

This is the most important of the advisory committees to me. It really is advising on statistical priorities and on our overall communications program, for example. It's made up of a wide range of relatively important and well-known Canadians.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Okay. Then, can you advise who some of the members of the national statistics council are, what their background is, and how they fit into the overall architecture of Statistics Canada and your work?

[Wayne Smith]

There are some 30 members. The current chair of the committee is Ian McKinnon, who has been a deputy minister at the provincial level. He also used to run a polling firm and is currently the president of Pacific Issues Partners, in Victoria, British Columbia.

We strive for regional representation. Elizabeth Beale, who is a very active member, is president and chief executive officer for the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, in Halifax. Dr. Monica Boyd is professor of sociology and the Canada research chair in immigration, inequality and public policy at the University of Toronto. François Dupuis, a member who just recently joined the council—in fact, his first meeting is coming up very shortly—is vice-president and economist in chief for economic studies for the Mouvement Desjardins in Montreal.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Rather than go through the whole committee—I didn't know it was 30 members....

In your comments you talked about broadening that particular body. How will this help you, at the end of the day, to perform your work at Statistics Canada better?

[Wayne Smith]

To be advised effectively on priorities—on data priorities, on program priorities generally—I need a set of voices that are representative of the stakeholders in the statistical system. To have a committee that is dominated, as the committee has been to some extent in the past, by academics, gives the discussion a flavour that is somewhat biased in terms of certain interests and certain priorities. By bringing in more business members, by bringing in representatives from municipal governments, I get a more balanced view. I hear more views and more voices. The result, therefore, is more balanced in terms of the interests of all Canadians.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

The Auditor General also mentioned that there have been some issues regarding turnover. I've been on many advisory boards. I'm sure many of them didn't think I was the person who should be replaced—I'm sure they didn't think that at all—but sometimes it is helpful, I find, Mr. Chair, to bring new people to the table.

Has the part of the recommendation from the Auditor General on turnover also been implemented?

[Wayne Smith]

Yes, it was again a very well-taken point. We're implementing a three-year term limit on members. We have started the process already of reconstituting some of these committees.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I'm sorry, Mr. Albas, but your time has expired.

Moving along, my notes advise me that Monsieur Giguère and Mr. Allen are going to split their time, but now I'm getting a signal that Mr. Allen is going to lead off.

Mr. Allen, you have the floor.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to take Mr. Smith back to paragraph 8.53 on page 13. My friend across the way, Mr. Woodworth, talked about the subdivisions and quite accurately pointed out the definition of such. But inside this paragraph, the Auditor General has indicated that some were “sparsely populated”.

I don't want to read into that, so I may have to ask Mr. Ferguson what he means when he says “sparsely”. I don't think he means zero. I would presume that there are people there, if you say “sparsely populated”.

Would that be correct, Mr. Ferguson?

[Michael Ferguson]

When we're referring to “sparsely populated” areas, we would be referring to ones that had at least some people in them, yes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

It also indicates that one of the subdivisions had as many as 10,000 people, which is actually a significant number of people, not an insignificant number. The quality for that subdivision wasn't as good as it could have been for folks to use.

Is that correct, Mr. Smith?

[Wayne Smith]

Just as the Auditor General said, it was concentrated in the smallest sense of subdivision.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I understand that, Mr. Smith. But clearly there was an inference that perhaps some of your subdivisions had zero people in them. I'm simply pointing out that I don't think that's the case.

[Wayne Smith]

The sentence that the Auditor General wrote wasn't referring to them, but there are census subdivisions with zero population.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I appreciate your clarifying that.

The other part of it is, at the very end, that paragraph says, Mr. Smith, that in 2006 the data for 1% of the population was basically unavailable, but now we have a figure of 3%. Many folks would still say those are low numbers, 1% versus 3%, but statistically, is it not a significant statistical issue when you when you treble the number and go from the 1% to 3%, albeit both are small numbers?

[Wayne Smith]

I'm not trying to minimize the fact that what happened is very unfortunate and that the loss of the data for those municipalities is not a desirable outcome; I'm not arguing that. Nor is it an outcome that we should dismiss. It's one we're going to make every effort in the 2016 census to reduce to the smallest extent possible. I don't want to trivialize the fact that a significant number of municipalities that would have expected to receive data didn't. It's not something I wanted to happen, and it's something I'm going to seek to avoid to the greatest extent possible in 2016.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I agree. I don't think you were trying to do that, sir. I think what we need to get as testimony is the realization that this happened.

The other piece of it is that as part of your conversation with my friends across the way, I think you mentioned Saskatchewan. Just to clarify quickly, because I have to give some time to Mr. Giguère, you talked about the subdivisions in Saskatchewan and indicated that a fair number of these situations actually happened in rural Saskatchewan.

Did I catch that correctly?

[Wayne Smith]

Yes. That's accurate. Saskatchewan was the most affected province of all provinces.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Giguère.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I would like to go back to your initial information.

You said that the elimination of the mandatory questionnaire had led to an erosion in the quality of data, in 3% of the regions in particular. I would like to point out that these are almost all remote areas. This tells me that Statistics Canada may provide us with erroneous data regarding the situation in an urban area. So there is indeed real erosion. Is the level of data quality erosion much more serious for the truly remote areas, especially if those 1,128 subdivisions on which you have no data are systematically remote areas? Does this mean that Statistics Canada can no longer provide us with reliable information on well-defined areas that may only represent 3% of the population, but perhaps 70% of the population that resides in the far north?

[Wayne Smith]

Once again, it is true that the problem was concentrated in remote areas, but that does not mean that there were no problems in certain census subdivisions closer to the large urban centres. The issue mostly concerned remote areas, but by combining census subdivisions, we can create publishable units. So it would be inaccurate to say that there is a complete lack of data. We can provide information on regions by combining census subdivisions and generating publishable data.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I see that my time is up. Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Time has expired. You're welcome.

Mr. Woodworth, the final spot in our rotation is yours.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Smith, I'd like to follow up on the ongoing response to the Auditor General's report.

I've asked you already about the quarterly job vacancy survey, and you've told me about that. I understand that in addition your agency is planning an annual national wage survey. Is that correct? If so, can you describe it and give me the timeline?