Thank you, Chair.
First, thank you, Minister. I want to go back towards multiculturalism. Your officials were generous in their time with me as a new critic, briefing me on multiculturalism. They presented a number of the historical trends in multiculturalism as well as looking at the future.
I asked the departmental officials about the effects of not having a long-form mandatory census on the kinds of data that your department will have to do estimates, to do planning, to do the kinds of work we're doing.
They indicated to me, and your staff was present, that this was a problem for them. Finally, they admitted they would have information, but then they acknowledged the information could not be trusted. When I asked your staff person whether or not you had an opinion on this, he suggested I ask the Minister of Industry.
I don't have the Minister of Industry here, but I have you here, and I just wanted to check on your concerns that you might have about your department's ability to plan for multiculturalism without a mandatory long-form census.