I'll take a crack at that.
The government's stated objective in deciding to eliminate the mandatory long-form census questionnaire is to limit intrusion of the personal privacy of Canadians. In our view, it's very likely this decision will do the opposite, in two ways.
Because business organizations won't have census data and business insights available to them that are as reliable and specific as can be obtained—and we do have a mandatory census questionnaire—consumers will therefore receive offers or be exposed to advertising messages that are not relevant to them. They will be far less customized and targeted than can be obtained with the information from a mandatory census questionnaire. Businesses will have to collect more information from consumers to make up for the expected loss of data from the long-form census for small areas.
In addition, the ability to deliver goods and services locally will be affected and consumers will be inconvenienced. Think of a young mother trying to find infant formula in a grocery store in a seniors' neighbourhood to get a picture of how important good, integrated local data are to consumer convenience.
Since the long-form census has been going to one-fifth of the population every five years, any household has a statistical probability of getting the long-form mandatory census questionnaire only two or three times in their lifetime. Stats Canada's rules ensure absolute confidentiality. No data from those households or individuals are released or can be inferred. The use of summarized level data by our industry ensures privacy-friendly marketing analytics and in fact helps limit intrusion into the personal privacy of Canadians.
To sum up, it's our industry's view that from a big-picture perspective, because the mandatory long-form census questionnaire generates more reliable data, it is more effective at limiting intrusion into Canadians' lives by reducing poorly targeted marketing communications that would otherwise be sent to them than moving to a voluntary national household survey would be.