A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to host a few round tables, three round tables, in my constituency. About 45 constituents overall came to these round tables. It was interesting; despite all the media coverage, not one of those constituents actually brought up any opposition to this decision at all.
In my conversations I've had with constituents, they're very surprised, actually, when they understand, when they hear, that there's a threat of jail time or fines for not answering questions on how many bedrooms you have in your house, or how many hours you spend doing yardwork or housework. One of the questions in the 2006 census was on how much time, basically, you spend with your kids.
When I articulate to them that these are the types of questions that have been in the long form, and that if they refuse to tell the government how much time they spend with their kids they can be threatened with jail time or fines, they're astounded by that. I think many Canadians don't really.... You know, they fill out the long form, maybe, if they're the one in five who get it, but they don't actually know that they're threatened with jail time for not filling out those questions. They're surprised and quite agitated by the fact that we would actually threaten them with jail time for not answering a question about how much housework you do or how much yardwork you do.
Now, I've heard our opponents on the other side, the Liberals, go forward and actually, I think quite surprisingly, continue to press for prosecution for not answering these questions, or press for the threat of prosecution for not answering these questions.
Is that the crux of this issue? Is that the defining difference between the parties?