The context of what you're talking about was something I had written in which I had said that there is a political purpose that can be served by proposing to make the long-form census voluntary. The political purpose to which I was pointing was simply that there are those who do call themselves Libertarian, for example, or Libertarian Conservatives, who, like me, are not in favour of someone requiring them to identify their race, sex, religion, and so on at the point of a gun or a fine or imprisonment.
The other part of my argument, though, was that I did not think there was really a substantive problem with making the census voluntary, because it's more form than substance. I think this data is available already, outside of the census. This is more an overture to those who think that maybe the Conservatives are more friendly with the social conservatives than they are with those who are sort of free-market types. It's an olive branch, if you will, although I'm not sure how effective it will be.