Human Resources Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2010

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Candice Bergen]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone. This is meeting number 34 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are now studying the impact of cancelling the long-form census.

I want to remind the committee members that we have two hours of witnesses; however, we have some committee business that we have to deal with, so we will be finishing with the witnesses 15 minutes before the end of the meeting.

For the first hour, we are very pleased to have witnesses representing the City of Toronto as well as the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association. I want to thank the witnesses for being here and for making yourselves available to us. Each one of the groups will have seven minutes to make a presentation, so we will have seven minutes from the City of Toronto and seven minutes from the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association.

I would ask you, especially because you are off-site, to keep an eye on the monitor, and I will let you know when you are close to your seven minutes. Because we are very tight on time, we try to keep all of the time limits pretty strictly adhered to.

We will begin with the City of Toronto. I believe we have Ms. Janet Davis, who is a councillor.

Please go ahead, Ms. Davis.

[Janet Davis, Councillor, City of Toronto]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to start by saying that the City of Toronto relies significantly on the long-form census data as part of the core data that guide the city in long-term planning for growth, service, and program planning, and for targeted funding allocations for a variety of human services and supports. It's a vital resource that helps us to better understand the socio-economic and geographic characteristics of Toronto.

The absence of this data will hinder the city's ability to accurately develop plans and policies for a wide range of service delivery requirements, from immigration settlement programs to public transit design.

Historically the long-form census has been used by the city at least as far back as the 1940s, and we think we relied on data from the long-form census even earlier. We use it in all of our program areas: public health, libraries, children's services, city planning, economic development, emergency services, transit planning, and so on.

As well, it helps us to better understand the diverse populations that we serve. Toronto, as you know, is a city of neighbourhoods, and we rely on the detailed information that comes from the smaller geographic areas for all of our targeted place-based approaches. It's the historic integrity of the long-form census data that is paramount to ensuring that we understand the needs of our city and are targeting our resources in a way that serves the needs of the very people we need to understand. We rely heavily on the data in the long-form census.

We believe that the long-form census should be restored, and city council approved a motion to that effect in July. We're calling on the federal government to reconsider its decision, because we believe that the national household survey will provide a far less reliable set of data and will absolutely affect our ability to understand the at-risk populations that we're serving.

In general we'd say that the data that will be collected from the national household survey will be less reliable. In some cases, in the small geographic samples, it will absolutely not even be available and certainly will not allow us to compare with previous census data and allow us to look at trends over time. We know there will be a significant non-response bias in the replacement survey and we know that those who don't answer a voluntary survey are likely to be the very people we are looking to serve, those from the socially and economically disadvantaged groups. We know that the proposed national household survey will pose a significant challenge for us in terms of information we use on a daily basis.

I'll give you a couple of examples. Boards of health are charged under the Health Protection and Promotion Act with protecting the interests of public health. We're required to meet the Ontario public health standards and to complete the public health assessment and surveillance protocol, which requires the city to collect data on not just age and gender, but also on education, employment, income, housing, immigration, culture, and disability. All of these data we derive from the long-form census. The data will simply not be available in the way we've had it to date.

Under section 7 of the act we also are required to undertake surveillance activities. We know that we need this information in order to better understand risk factors, behaviours, and health outcomes.

We also are required to complete the Canadian community health survey, and we rely on the census data to better inform us on how that survey is conducted.

We think it's not just a deficiency in the sense that we'll lose the information from the census; it will also make all of the other surveys that rely on the census data unreliable as well.

We've given a couple of examples. You have our written submission about how we've used the census data. In our TB prevention programs and our H1N1 pandemic planning, we relied heavily on the census information.

As to other areas, we rely on census data to plan our growth management strategies. We have to establish employment targets—a requirement under our official plan and under the province's growth plan for the greater Golden Horseshoe. We will not be able to track trends: where people live or how they get there. That will affect our planning for transit and transportation. We are also required, under the growth plan for the Greater Toronto-Horseshoe, to provide and develop a housing strategy. We have to have affordable housing targets and plan for population growth.

All of those are required of us as a city, and we will simply be unable to do that kind of planning without the data from the long-form census.

Regarding immigration and settlement, we're working with the federal government for the first time under an MOU to plan for services for immigration and settlement. We simply will not be able to understand, particularly at the small geographic level, where people are residing, where they've come from, and what their needs are.

Child care subsidies are determined based on a variety of economic factors, and so is planning for recreation. Our labour market strategies clearly will be affected, if we don't have accurate and reliable information on labour market trends. As I said, we have also had a very successful place-based approach to funding in priority neighbourhoods, where needs have been identified based on the information from the census, so that we are focusing and targeting our resources in those communities that need it.

I would add one last point. At least 25 pieces of federal legislation rely on accurate data for determining funding allocations. Our transfer payments rely on accurate population data, and we simply won't have it.

In summary, I'd just say there's a bias—

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you. I'm sorry, that is all the time you have, but thank you. I'm sure you'll have a chance to expand during the question time.

[Janet Davis]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

We'll now go to the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association. Please introduce yourself. You have seven minutes for a presentation.

Thank you.

[Brendan Wycks, Executive Director, Marketing Research and Intelligence Association]

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. I want to thank you for inviting the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association to appear before you today on this very important issue.

My name is Brendan Wycks, and I am the executive director of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, or MRIA for short. I'm here this morning with an industry leader from my association, Anne Crassweller. Anne is president of NADbank Inc. NADbank is a national organization that measures newspaper audiences and readership.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with MRIA, we are the single authoritative voice of the marketing and survey research industry in Canada. Our membership includes over 2,000 individual research practitioners and more than 400 corporate members, which are comprised of research agencies of all sizes and scope, as well as many corporate buyers of research services. Our association develops and enforces standards for the Canadian opinion research industry, and our industry accounts for over $750 million in economic activity annually and employs over 5,000 Canadians.

Our association and its members consider the issue of the mandatory long-form census questionnaire to be of prime importance to our industry and to the country. We have written to Industry Minister Clement on the issue. We have previously submitted a brief to the industry committee. We have urged the minister and cabinet to reconsider their decision to cancel the mandatory long-form census questionnaire.

Our concern is that the cancellation of the mandatory long-form census questionnaire will affect the availability, quality, and reliability of essential data that Canadian businesses and other organizations, including governments, have come to depend upon. Specifically, we're concerned that the cancellation will have a negative impact on the ability of governments, institutions, non-governmental organizations, and others to plan and make decisions based upon vital social trends relating to economic security, labour markets, and social program development for those Canadians who are living in or are on the cusp of living in poverty.

The data generated by the mandatory long-form census provides survey researchers with a deep and rich set of facts about Canadians, facts that are reliable at the local, regional, and national levels. They rely on that essential data when they conduct research on behalf of decision-makers from all sectors, from governments to not-for-profit organizations, to corporations of all sizes.

As the staff head of an association that governs and represents experts in survey methodology, I can assure you that the robustness and reliability of the data generated by the mandatory long-form questionnaire is due to the huge sample involved—one in five households all across the country—and because response is mandatory.

Although a new voluntary national household survey will come into play and may provide information for some purposes, it will not provide reliable information for many other purposes. In particular, only a mandatory census can reliably track changes over time, and produce consistent and reliable data for small population groups and small geographic areas.

As many other organizations have pointed out, the response rate in a voluntary survey will likely be substantially lower than average from hard-to-reach segments of the population, including lower-income groups, marginalized communities such as aboriginal peoples, immigrants, and high-income households as well. The new national household survey is therefore likely to lead to skewed data and doubts about its representativeness.

We must emphasize that larger sample sizes with voluntary completion will not correct for such biases.

Survey research organizations use census data to plan and validate many sample-based surveys that they carry out. Long-form census data plays a particularly important role in the development of surveys of populations such as immigrants and aboriginal peoples. These groups have historically faced income challenges and have been particularly hard-hit during this current recession. These groups will also be key in helping meet future labour demands.

Our member research agencies make use of the long-form census data for studies in human resource planning in a rapidly changing work world, where up-to-date, accurate, and detailed information on both the supply and demand for workers is required for an efficient labour market. Applications include the development of recruitment and retention strategies, as well as planning programs to ensure the workforce reflects the community being served.

While labour market information needs to go beyond what can be delivered by a census, the long-form census questionnaire being mandatory is an essential building block for other sources of information.

From the survey research industry's perspective, the data generated by the long-form census questionnaire constitute crucial input for the sample designs of other national surveys because they allow researchers to compute and extrapolate rates for key social and economic indicators. In other words, survey researchers rely on the data from the mandatory long-form questionnaire to adjust their survey results to be nationally representative.

MRIA cannot stress strongly enough that without the data from the long-form census questionnaire all survey results, including those from the national household survey, will likely be biased on important dimensions such as income, education, housing status, and others.

Corporate and government decision-makers rely on accurate and reliable research data to help them make the right decisions, and measuring trends and conditions being experienced by those Canadians living in and on the cusp of poverty will be more important than ever in our post-recession economy.

In the future, the lack of reliable information may result in poor decisions, lower efficiencies, and increased costs around the development and management of social and other programs. Productivity and competitiveness may, in turn, be affected.

We therefore urge this committee to recommend that cabinet reconsider and reverse its decision to eliminate the mandatory long-form census questionnaire.

Again, we'd like to thank you for inviting MRIA to appear before you today on this very important issue for the country, for our industry, and for all Canadians.

We look forward to any questions the committee may have of us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you so much for that.

We will begin our first round of questions. We'll start with a five-minute round, and that will include questions and answers.

We will begin with the Liberals. Madam Minna, please.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to all of you from Toronto, and Janet as well. It's a strange place to meet you this morning.

[Janet Davis]

Thank you. Yes, my MP.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Yes.

I wanted to start with Janet first, and then I'm going to go to some others.

You have, Janet—maybe I should say councillor, because that would be appropriate—quite a list, actually, of ways that this would hamper the city, in terms of developing its programs, and also, more importantly, not just generally your programs but the acts that you are obliged, as a city, to follow and to respect, and to have proper information.

You listed quite a few of those—and those are clear—with respect to health standards. I'm not going to repeat all of them, but I wanted to ask you two things.

One, you said that there were at least 25 pieces of federal legislation the city is obliged to respect, I suppose, and work with. Could you give us a couple of those and whether or not you think the Government of Canada would have to relax those pieces, given that the city would no longer have that information?

Two, from your perspective, given that Toronto went through a major issue with SARS, we had a major crisis, as you know—this goes to the health part of your presentation—could you briefly tell us how this would impact that kind of preparation, that kind of situation, from the public health perspective?

So there are those two pieces, if you could. I only have seven minutes, I apologize. If you could through those quickly, I can go to the other questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

I just want to remind the witnesses that actually your microphones are on, so when you're having discussions we can actually hear them. So when the questioner is asking, you could either refrain or turn the mike off, and that would be great.

All right, go ahead and answer, please.

[Janet Davis]

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities' submissions—I'm sure you'll be hearing from them—are much more detailed in terms of the pieces of legislation that require accurate data.

The city, in particular, is governed by the planning act, and it requires that we establish a housing strategy, housing targets, and that we have a transportation plan, all of which rely on the data that we will no longer be able to rely on.

The Health Protection and Promotion Act also requires that we provide certain information, that we undertake surveillance of our populations around specific health issues. In particular, under section 7 of the Health Protection and Promotion Act, we have to be able to provide this kind of data. I know that Ontario Public Health Standards and Protocols require us to ensure that we are meeting the health standards. In order to do that, we must be able to assess the populations that we're reaching.

We must complete the public health assessment and surveillance protocol. That requires us to actually gather data on education, employment income, housing, and so on, and what I listed earlier. We simply will not be able to provide that information.

For our H1N1 pandemic planning, it's critical that we understand the populations and the characteristics of the populations by neighbourhood. The small geographic data will be far less reliable, and even Statistics Canada has said so. I'm not sure if you've heard what Statistics Canada itself has said, but even though they anticipate undertaking some different kind of sampling to try to mitigate against the non-response rate, the national household survey is anticipated to achieve a response rate of 50%, and there is a substantial risk of non-response bias. They talk about how they might mitigate; however, it is certain that there will be residual significant bias that will be impossible to measure and correct.

Even Statistics Canada itself recognizes that the bias in the national household survey will be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome through different sub-sampling.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I have 30 seconds, so I guess all I can do is wrap up and hope that I can come back to you in a later round.

From what you and Mr. Wycks have said, essentially it would actually cripple the ability of not only the City of Toronto and municipalities across the country and provinces and not-for-profits but also private corporations or anyone to actually do their work.

[Janet Davis]

There will be no municipality in Ontario that will be able to meet its obligations under the planning act, under the places-to-grow policies, and under the Health Protection and Promotion Act. We will be unable to meet our required statutory obligations.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Councillor Davis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

We will now go to Mr. Lessard, please.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, I would like to thank this morning's witnesses. Their testimony is critically important to the decision that will be made regarding the long-form census.

I would like to hear your views on the reasons given by the government for scrapping the long-form census. Confidentiality is a consideration the importance of which should not be minimized. Information concerning the intimate details of households should not need to be disclosed. Two reasons were cited by the government. Having to disclose the number of bedrooms one has is a problem that was mentioned by Mr. Clement. Last week, the Secretary of State stated that it was indiscreet to inquire about the time a person leaves the house to go to work and the amount of time it takes people to get to work.

Do you consider these valid reasons? Given the impact the elimination of the long-form census will have on your work, are these good enough reasons to do away with the long-form census?

[Janet Davis]

Do you want to go ahead?

[Brendan Wycks]

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.

[Janet Davis]

If I could just add to that, the Canadian public doesn't think it's too intrusive. There have been several surveys recently—Ipsos and Angus Reid—where two-thirds of Canadians said they felt it was reasonable, and a reasonable intrusion. The majority of people think the federal government has made a mistake and they should reverse their decision. The public does not believe it is too intrusive.

We rely on information, such as the number of bedrooms or how you travel to work, to understand the patterns of behaviour in our city, so we can plan for housing adequacy, understand what affordable housing is, and whether we have overcrowding in certain neighbourhoods, based on the number of bedrooms in the housing in those neighbourhoods.

We need to plan for how people are going to get to and from work and what their travel patterns are. We rely on this information. It's important. I don't believe the public is opposed whatsoever to participating in the mandatory long-form census.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you.

[Janet Davis]

I don't know who's opposed--350 groups...? I don't know who's opposed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Martin, please.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Good morning.

It's nice to see you again, Janet. Congratulations on your re-election.

To build on the discussion you had with Mr. Lessard, you don't have to convince this side of the table. We believe the mandatory long-form census is the way to go and we should continue with it. It's the other side.... It was Mr. Savage who brought this forward for our discussion here.

One of the issues seems to be this whole question of how you make people comply. It's the question of whether we put people in jail, whether we fine them. There's always the scenario presented to us of the single mother of three children who doesn't fill in the form: do you put her in jail, and that kind of thing?

This is obviously an issue for the government at this time, how you punish those who don't comply. I don't think anybody can come up with an example where somebody actually has gone to jail because they haven't filled out the long-form mandatory.

Maybe one of you could talk to us a bit concerning that particular issue.

[Janet Davis]

I think you've made the point yourself, which is very clear, that we don't prosecute. There's a 94% response rate, so clearly some people are not responding and we're not tossing people into jail.

As for the single mother, the experience to date has been that this has not been punitive. The intrusion—if you want to use that word—is reasonable, considering the importance of the data for governments and the private and the non-governmental sectors.