Thank you. I'm going to split my time with Ken Dryden, so please give me some notice. We're going to move fairly quickly.
I want to thank you all for coming, those of you who have given witness today. Those of you who are new did fabulously. Those of you who are veterans also did very well.
This decision on the census stunned Canadians. I suspect it stunned even some of my Conservative colleagues on this committee who found themselves defending an indefensible position when this came out. But you know, this has brought together business and labour, health and education. It has brought together politicians of all stripes, premiers, and many others. It has brought together the United Church of Canada, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. It brought everybody together, unfortunately, in opposition to this decision. It would be nice if Canadians could come together in that way on other issues.
But here is my question to you. It doesn't seem that this was an accident. Initially it seemed like just a poor decision, but it seems it was made deliberately. It's always tricky to ask witnesses to assume the motives of a government, but I want to ask anybody, perhaps starting with CCSD, if they could give us any reason why the government would want to make this decision.