Industry Committee on July 27th, 2010

[Niels Veldhuis]

From time to time, yes, we do use data from the long-form questionnaire. Of course, we don't know exactly what data will be available from the voluntary survey, but it's not critical to our mandate. Certainly we do a lot of our own surveys, especially on waiting lists in hospitals. We do surveys of different sectors of the economy, including the mining and petroleum sectors.

So we use a combination of our own data collection and Stats Canada data.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you.

What do you think about the position of Mr. Paul Hébert that it's very important for all departments to have a lot of information about Canadians for their well-being, and that if we don't have the mandatory questionnaire and all of these intrusive questions, some departments at the federal level, and maybe at the provincial level, won't be able to achieve their goals?

What do you think about that? Do you think it will be the end of the world if we don't have a mandatory long-form questionnaire?

[Niels Veldhuis]

No, I certainly don't think it will be the end of the world.

Look, if the information is needed and people are willing to pay for the information, we can certainly collect the information on a voluntary basis.

Now, as far as planning goes, certainly there are some departments who use the census for planning, but whether that relates to positive results or negative results, I think you have to be much more specific.

As a final note on the census, again, if the information is needed, it can be voluntarily extracted. There's no need to threaten someone to disclose their personal information, as currently is the case.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you.

With regard to the 19%, if we go to a voluntary questionnaire...and I hope we will do that. I think it's the most important thing, because the principle here is the freedom to choose of Canadians. They must have the right to choose if they want to answer it or not, because we just said these are all intrusive personal questions. I'm very proud of the decision of the minister on that.

But only 19% of Canadians won't answer the questionnaire if it's on a voluntary basis. Do you think it is an important number? What is your position on that? Do you believe that number?

[Niels Veldhuis]

Well, again, I think that's an empirical question. I think we do have some research from the U.S. that does show the response rate goes down, as Mr. Drummond indicated. I'm also not too concerned about the decrease in the response rate.

The U.S. Census Bureau actually came to the conclusion that if they expended more resources, they could still get the same reliable data on a voluntary basis just as they did on a mandatory basis.

So if it's a question of data reliability, the U.S. Census Bureau certainly came to a different conclusion.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you.

So do you agree with the decision of the government not to threaten Canadians with a fine, or maybe jail time, if they don't answer questions about their private lives?

[Niels Veldhuis]

I certainly agree with the government that it should not be mandatory. We've heard a lot about the fact that no one has been thrown in jail. We don't know exactly how many fines have been paid. But it's certainly not the case that you would judge this by how many people were thrown in jail or how many people paid fines; it's the threat of those things that obviously is very intrusive to Canadians. It's the threat of getting a fine or being put in jail that might force them to answer the question.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Merci, monsieur Bernier, and thank you, Mr. Veldhuis.

Monsieur Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

In my view, the big question here has more to do with science. The census should be scientific, it should be based on a scientific method, and every census should provide information on trends, profiles and the progression or regression of society.

Certain areas have been mentioned. This morning, I heard Minister Clément say that it was a risk but that the government was going to send a voluntary long-form questionnaire to 30% of the population. You know the story.

I have heard the question here and elsewhere in various forms. We have heard about trends, the loss of continuity, less reliability and benchmarks. Those are all components in question, but it is still the scientific component that takes precedence, in my opinion. That is the heart of the matter.

In addition to that, we talked about the confidentiality aspect. I heard the witness from British Columbia say that this change would allow us to know the name of someone's spouse, when everything is confidential.

Now, since there are so many of you and since I have less than five minutes left, I will direct my questions first to Mr. Bricker of IPSOS Canada, then to Mr. Boyko, Mr. Hébert and Mr. Drummond.

Will we suffer, from a scientific perspective, if the Conservatives' plan goes forward?

[Darrell Bricker]

I don't necessarily think that you're going to be hurt. The reality with survey research, and even with the census, is that it changes over time. It's an organic process. You learn as you go along. As far as I can see, the idea of going to a voluntary census, or actually a voluntary sample, carries with it certain risks. I think they've been well identified by the people who are here on the panel. The question is whether or not they're unmanageable risks.

Based on my professional experience doing this research all over the world, I can tell you there are people who manage these risks all the time quite successfully. It may take a couple of cycles, as Mr. Drummond indicated, but it's not impossible to move to a voluntary census and generate very high-quality data that would be of as high a standard as anywhere in the world. As I said before, an 80% response rate is about as high as I've ever seen on anything.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

I am putting the same question to Mr. Boyko.

[Ernie Boyko]

I think the word “hurt” is probably too strong. I think what we'd end up doing is we'd end up misallocating resources. The reason for asking a lot of the questions is because we have government programs and we have other important stakeholders in Canada who allocate resources based on the census. If you have biased information, you're going to misallocate resources. On the other hand, a lot of the groups that we suspect may be less likely to reply, be they people at lower income levels or new immigrants, may be the ones who will not be targeted for programs that are important.

I would also worry about the response in rural areas. The populations in rural areas are diminishing. A lot of very important decisions depend on this. I was recently in rural Manitoba, and there the issue was projecting school enrollment looking at education data in a municipality. They were trying to determine whether they could keep their high school.

I look at the kind of investment decisions made using the data. One example brought to my attention recently was that Toyota made a decision to locate its plant in a certain part of Ontario after having looked at the education data of the population from which they would be drawing their workers. They chose that spot in Canada as opposed to a place in the United States. Their reasoning was that there would be lower costs involved in training the workers.

So decisions will be made; unfortunately, they will not be made with the best information available.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Boyko.

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

First I'd like to ask Mr. Bricker, does your organization purchase census data from StatsCan?

[Darrell Bricker]

Sometimes, sure.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Do you use data that's collected on a voluntary basis? I wonder if you could give me some—

[Darrell Bricker]

Our entire business is about collecting data on a voluntary basis. The entire market research industry in Canada, a billion-dollar industry, is all about collecting data for the private and public sectors on a voluntary basis. We wish we had a mandatory way of making people respond to our surveys, but we don't.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Do you think it's reasonable or fair, then, to coerce people to give out this information--or necessary?

[Darrell Bricker]

Well, I think that Canadians do feel.... There were some other questions that we asked on this survey, and Canadians, 77%, tell us that it's their civic duty to complete the census. It's not that there's a huge, overwhelming majority of the population saying that they're not going to complete the census. Most people say that they would, and they think it's their civic duty. But they do have trouble with the intrusiveness of the census. I mean, 51% say that completing the long form is an intrusion in their lives. This isn't just a couple of crazy people saying they're Jedi. This is a bit of an issue out there.

Either Statistics Canada gets that figured out and tries to factor it into the process it uses for generating data or it's going to start running into a fairly non-compliant population, rules or not, laws or not.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Right. I actually think the Liberals in particular are underrating Canadians when they say they aren't going to be willing to participate. I think Canadians will be willing to participate.

In terms of a bit of the pressure that's on people to conform, I want to talk to Mr. Boyko.

You worked for census Canada for a long time. I assume you're familiar with the non-response follow-up manual that the enumerators use. There's some information in there and I just want to ask you some questions about content.

In one place, it tells StatsCan enumerators to obtain private and personal information from Canadians, and tells them clearly to treat sensitive questions the same way as they would treat other questions.

In your time at Statistics Canada, what would you have seen as a sensitive question? What kinds of things would qualify?

[Ernie Boyko]

During my time at Statistics Canada, I was not involved in the data collection portion of the census. The census is a large project. I was involved more with the dissemination side of things and dealing with the many users across the country. I can't answer that specific question.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

You may not be able to answer this one either. The manual also tells them that if they expect to have a problem with a question that they consider personal, sensitive, or delicate, and they treat this question differently, the respondent will pick up on it and then they will have a problem.

In their manual, what type of problem were they talking about Canadians having with questions? I assume that, as Mr. Bricker talked about, it's those questions that are intrusive. People don't want to be asked how many bedrooms they have in their home and those kinds of things. Is that appropriate?

[Ernie Boyko]

I believe what they're telling the enumerator is that if you start backing off in the way you ask certain questions, that may set the tone for the rest of the interview; therefore, the mandatory aspect of it, or the momentum to complete the questionnaire, may be lost. That's what I would read into that.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay. I think that actually is a good point, because the threat is not benign. We talked about that a little bit this morning. I'm as familiar with the agriculture surveys that come out regularly and people being harassed by phone from seven in the morning until midnight if they won't answer them. We've had the same complaints about the long form in every census that has come around.

I just want to read something to you. There's a total refusal form in the enumerators' manual, and down at the bottom it has instructions for the enumerator to put in the description of the person who refused—the age, the gender, the height, the weight, other physical details such as facial hair, tattoos, birthmarks, distinctive clothing, etc. Do you have any idea where that information would have gone or what it would have been used for?