Bill C-36 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Statistics Act

This enactment amends the Statistics Act to strengthen the independence of Statistics Canada, including by providing for the appointment of the Chief Statistician to hold office during good behaviour and by assigning to the Chief Statistician the powers related to methods, procedures and operations of Statistics Canada. It also establishes a transparent process to issue directives to the Chief Statistician concerning those methods, procedures and operations or the statistical programs. In addition, it establishes the Canadian Statistics Advisory Council, no longer requires the consent of respondents to transfer their Census information to Library and Archives Canada and repeals imprisonment as a penalty for any offence committed by a respondent. Finally, it amends certain provisions by modernizing the language of the Act to better reflect current methods of collecting statistical information.

[Larry Shute, Deputy Director General, Economic Research and Policy Analysis Branch, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry]

Under the existing act, both the census of population and the census of agriculture are mandatory. There is a long-established tradition of the long form being part of the census, so therefore it's mandatory. Under Bill C-36 we actually assign to the chief statistician the ability to make mandatory any request for information. He makes the long-form census mandatory. For example, he could make the national household survey, if it was continued, mandatory. It's his decision. It's part of the methodology for collecting that is assigned to him under Bill C-36.

For example, if you look at the long-form census from this year, which was mandatory after the government reinstated it, the title of it was “2016 Census of Population questions, long form (National Household Survey)”.

That power is now with the chief statistician.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This amendment again was one recommended from the evidence that the committee has heard. As much as one would like to think that Bill C-36 made it impossible for the political interference and the collection of statistics that we saw in the 41st Parliament from ever happening again, from the decision that was made by Tony Clement, one must pause for a moment and say that Munir Sheikh is probably one of the bravest, most dedicated civil servants this country has ever seen. He lost his job rather than see Statistics Canada fail to do a mandatory long-form census while the minister pretended that nobody had told him that it would be a bad decision. I would urge the government to consider bringing back Munir Sheikh, because there you have a person of such impeccable integrity that we would know that our Statistics Canada division was run by someone who is independent.

However, the law at this point, as drafted, won't ensure that we won't see that happen again, so my amendment goes to the issue of the potential for interpretations by the court, that the questions that go to a particular segment of the population, and not to every Canadian, are somehow not mandatory. As you see, after line 36, on page 4, I would insert PV-2:

The census of population and census of agriculture are mandatory even if not all the questions are addressed to all respondents and regardless of the method used to obtain the information.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move that Bill C-36 in clause 3 be amended by replacing lines 18 to 21 on page 3 with the following:

Statistics Canada the statistics and information that he or she considers useful and in the public interest relating to the commercial, industrial, financial, social, economic and other activities that he or she may deter-

It's an amendment that may create more inclusiveness for the chief statistician, and I'll leave it at that.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here not as a member of this committee but due to a motion the committee passed, which requires me to be here if I should want to put forward amendments. If you had not passed that motion, committee, I would be able to put forward amendments and speak to them at report stage. I still object to the process, but I will dive in.

First of all, I'm really overall pleased that the government is moving to improve the independence of Statistics Canada. I don't think it has gone far enough, and I wish to associate myself with a number of the comments that have been made to you by Paul Thomas and Wayne Smith. You'll note that a number of my amendments are based on their testimony.

The first amendment that we put forward is in relation to ensuring the independence of the appointment process, the fundamentals of chief statistician. We believe Bill C-36 should be amended, as Dr. Thomas recommended, to have an advisory appointment panel of three distinguished people of impeccable credentials.

You can see PV amendment 1 says that should the minister establish such an advisory appointment panel, it recommends one candidate and one alternate candidate...that the advisory panel be composed of three persons with appropriate knowledge. And I just want to explain the third subsection to committee members. It's just to ensure that we don't run into any royal recommendation issues for an amendment being put forward by a member of the committee as opposed to the government putting it in the guts of the bill. That's why we're recommending they not receive any remuneration. That's not because I don't believe distinguished people don't deserve remuneration, but I wanted to avoid any issues with the admissibility of this amendment.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Welcome back everybody to meeting number 58 of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, February 7, 2017, we have been studying Bill C-36, an act to amend the Statistics Act.

Today we have with us, from the Department of Industry, for any questions that might be needed, Larry Shute, deputy director general, economic research and policy analysis branch, strategic policy sector.

Before we proceed, the committee was in Washington, D.C., this week, and it was an amazing time. We met with so many relevant people. I just wanted to take a moment to recognize that the success of the trip was because of the hard work of our clerk, our analysts who are with us all the time taking hundreds of pages of notes—it blew me away how fast they were writing—and our logistics person, Suzie. Everybody at the embassy was phenomenal. They kept us on track and on time. I was very impressed, and kudos to our team and to your team. Thank you.

Having said that, we are moving on. We are on clause 1. There are no amendments.

(Clause 1 agreed to on division)

(On clause 2)

We are starting with PV-1.

Ms. May, you have the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Dreeshen, can you put it to Bill C-36, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Bill C-36, Mr. Dreeshen....

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

If we can, let's keep it to Bill C-36, please.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Welcome to the committee, Minister and Mr. Knubley.

I want to acknowledge the staff behind you, Minister. They've done a great job of giving us the information we need to make sure that the questions we bring to the committee and to you are very focused.

I want to go back to the independence, specifically on the statistical method. So far, we've talked about the what and we've talked about the how. You've been very clear during your speech that the what is going to come from the government, through you, and that the how is going to be determined by what I call the “statistical method”, by the chief statistician. However, Bill C-36 leaves open the possibility of the chief statistician being overruled on methodological issues by the responsible minister, i.e., you.

What I would like to ask is, what circumstances would necessitate something like that? What is the process that's in place to make sure it brings the transparency that's needed to ensure everyone is aware when such things happen?

Thank you.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, and Mr. Knubley, for being here. I appreciate your coming to talk about this particular bill.

The OECD framework for good statistical practices clearly states the importance of professional interdependence. I think that's important. We're getting amendments, suggestions, from both the former CSs and former members of NSC, who are telling us that there should be probably between 20 to 25 members for the new council. Of course, we've heard Mr. Arya's endorsement for the number that has been chosen.

It's important that as we look at bringing amendments to this discussion, it is realized that they come from advice that has been given to us by witnesses. We will look at that. We'll try to find a number. If it is carved in stone, we'll find that out as we go through the discussions.

I think it's important that we recognize it, and of course there's not necessarily a guarantee that cabinet directions and directives, decisions, are as transparent as one might suggest, as these things are made behind closed doors, but that has already been mentioned.

I have two things I wanted to ask. Based on the provisions of Bill C-36, who gets to call the shots when it comes to IT services? Will it be part of the new powers granted to the CS, or will it be the minister who gets to decide what kind of IT infrastructure StatsCan will use?

On the other question, was it your call or Mr. Anil Arora's call to stick with Shared Services Canada?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Minister, for being here. It's always good to have you here, and thanks to Mr. Knubley for joining us as well.

I want to build on what Mr. Masse was putting forward about Bill C-25 and the impact of that legislation on Bill C-36 and the way we would look at building the advisory council to have diversity within it. We had testimony about the number of people, but we haven't really addressed how we make sure that this strategic body has adequate diversity.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

No, this is Bill C-36 right now, but you're talking about changes to Bill C-25.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm using Bill C-36 as an example, as it's been raised.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Since you've raised the environment, I think the number one thing, if you were committed to it as a government, would be to prohibit the OPG from storing nuclear waste next to the Great Lakes. This is opposed by my American colleagues in the U.S. Congress, so a stat won't be necessary for that.

At any rate, I want to highlight a difficulty that I have. I understand that there will be some more connections back to the House, but on Bill C-36, which is still in the House right now, your government has moved closure on an amendment I have for that bill. What confidence can we have that there is going to be improved independence when, for example, an amendment related to gender, race, and equity on a previous bill is now subject to a motion for closure? Truly, what openness is there in this government to actually accept amendments?

We've had testimony on Bill C-36 and on Bill C-25, specific testimony from chief statisticians. I want assurances that there is going to be a serious evaluation of those potential amendments. Bill C-36 received some of those suggestions. We went through the process, and now we have the House closing debate on them. The amendments of former chief statisticians are fairly significant. They're not partisan. Is there going to be an openness for amendments from your government?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

If you will recall, the point of order was on Bombardier. As I explained to Mr. Nuttall, we need to keep the focus on Bill C-36, because that's within the scope of why we are here today.

Now, if you can relate Bill C-36 and Bombardier together, then....