Thank you for being here this morning. Your testimony helps us better to understand the impact of cancelling the long-form census. It may be appropriate for us to try and see what is behind all that. This exercise is also aimed, in a more practical sense, at finding how useful the long-form census can be. I believe we are in agreement about this. We mainly agree about the pretext used to cancel it, the jail penalty, even though it has never been used. I even have the feeling that everyone had forgotten about it.
Then, there was a kind of consensus in the House, at least between the opposition parties, to get rid of all that because it just did not make sense. Then the government used another argument and said there were intrusive questions, such as the one relating to the number of bedrooms. Why would we ask people how many bedrooms they have? It is precisely because such information allows us to assess housing problems in Canada. If a family answers that there are eight persons living under the same roof with only two bedrooms, there is a problem. This data also allows us to assess the level of poverty, of course, and also the quality of our housing stock. It is only an example and I believe that we are all in agreement about those things.
I would like to know what you think the intent of the government was in making that decision. When the Conservatives were in the Opposition and Mr. Dryden tried to set up a Canadian network of childcare services, the Conservatives said that grandmothers should take care of children. Their decision reveals their whole concept of what society should look like. It seems to me that we should look at the impact. As you said this morning, women's organizations have told to us what the impact would be on the status of women.
There is also the fact, for example, that we would not know how many people do unpaid work in Canada. That also is intentional, I believe.
The issue is not anymore whether this long-form questionnaire is useful or not. We all know it is. However, we now have a government that does not want us--especially you who fight for women, for youth and for people living in poverty--to have those tools to do this work.
Do you agree with this analysis? If so, what can we do to resist this attack against the most disadvantaged members of our society? I put this question to all of you.