Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to say a couple of things. I understand Mr. Komarnicki's sensitivity to this, but the reality is it is not a political issue--not for me anyway. I've been in the field of social policy for 35 to 40 years, Mr. Komarnicki, and this is not a political issue. This is very much a personal and sociological issue.
We have the report on poverty, which I think we need to finish before Christmas. I'm prepared to work overtime if we have to. Yes, we have other things, but with all due respect, even the study on disability relies on stable, reliable information from Statistics Canada. Without reliable information we can't even do our studies, so all of the work that HRDC does and we are charged to deal with is affected by not having adequate data and appropriate information if we lose the long-form census.
At the same time that the long-form census was dropped, the department also dropped the study on post-secondary education that they were doing on a regular basis. I forget the correct name of it. An actual study and evaluation survey used to be done to see where post-secondary education was, which kids got in, income situations, what universities were offering, and all kinds of things. All of that has been dropped as well.
So as a department we're losing the ability to do any of our work because we have no data. All of the witnesses who come before us would have access to no data either. We're blindfolding ourselves.
For all of those reasons, this is urgent, and I really believe we need to do it.
Thank you.