Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll split my time with Mr. Vellacott. I'll get to some commentary, and then I'll have a question or two.
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association had this to say:
As a civil liberties organization, we're obviously concerned about the severity of the penalties that can be brought against citizens who do not fill out the census. We might question the policy justification for some of the more unusual questions that have been included in the past.
That's part of it.
Then a Lawrie McFarlane, former deputy minister of health in British Columbia, had this to say: “Institutions that use coercion in order to deal with people, characteristically have relationship difficulties with the people they deal with.”
I think Mr. Dryden summed it up when he said, “People don't get fined, and they don't go to jail. That's the point.”
The only reason you would fine or send people to jail is because you want to threaten them to do something that they otherwise might not be prepared to do. What has happened in this case is not a question of information; it's taking the information from one place and moving it to another place where it's voluntary. And I know you might not be experts and professionals in this, but a Darrell Bricker had this to say: “As far as I can see, the idea of going to a voluntary census, or actually a voluntary sample, carries with it certain risks. The question is whether they are unmanageable risks. Based on my professional experience”, he said, “doing this research all over the world, I can tell you there are people who manage these risks all the time quite successfully.”
Given that background, one of the questions that is perhaps interesting, and we've talked about some of that, is asking people what time they leave for work in the morning, for example, and how long it might take them. Specifically, if it were directed to a single mother with three children, the question would be, do you feel that persons like that should be exposed to a fine of any kind, or imprisonment, if they choose not to say when they leave for work in the morning? Perhaps Debra Lynkowski and Cordell could answer that question. Do you think they should be fined or they should be sent to prison for choosing not to answer that question, for whatever reason they have?