Bill C-583 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Statistics Act (Chief Statistician)

This bill is from the 40th Parliament, 3rd session, which ended in March 2011.

Sponsor

Brian Masse  NDP

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of Oct. 21, 2010
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill.

This enactment amends the Statistics Act to require the Governor in Council to consult with the leader of every recognized party in the House of Commons before appointing the Chief Statistician of Canada and to make that appointment from a list of candidates submitted by a search committee appointed by the Minister designated by the Governor in Council for the purposes of that Act. It also requires the Chief Statistician of Canada to establish and publish guidelines respecting sources of statistical information and its collection, analysis, processing, storage and publication.

Similar bills

C-562 (41st Parliament, 2nd session) An Act to amend the Statistics Act (Chief Statistician and long-form census)
C-346 (41st Parliament, 2nd session) An Act to amend the Statistics Act (Chief Statistician and mandatory long-form census)
C-346 (41st Parliament, 1st session) An Act to amend the Statistics Act (Chief Statistician and mandatory long-form census)

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-583s:

C-583 (2014) An Act to amend the Criminal Code (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder)

Statistics ActRoutine Proceedings

October 21st, 2010 / 10:05 a.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-583, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (Chief Statistician).

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and an honour to present this act, an act to amend the Statistics Act. This would take the politics out of interfering with the chief statistician.

As members know, there has been a great controversy in Canada with regard to the census. This bill would actually provide greater scrutiny to a process to actually have a chief statistician. This bill, in particular, would require a committee of the Privy Council, the Chief Statistician of Canada, the Bank of Canada and the National Statistics Council to come together to select a chief statistician.

Second, once the chief statistician is selected, he or she will be required to do regular postings of information related to the survey and how it is used. This would restore the science behind the census and would take the politics out of it. That is a good thing for Canadians, I believe, because they believe in their census and they want to ensure that the science is what stands for the census, not ideology or other matters.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)