Industry Committee on Aug. 27th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

This is the 32nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. Today is Friday, August 27, 2010.

Welcome, committee members and witnesses. We're here pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) for a study of the long-form portion of the census.

With us today as part of our first panel is Mr. Cappe, who is the president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy; Mr. McKinnon, who is the chair of the National Statistics Council; Mr. Lam, vice-president of the Canada First Community Organization; Mr. Henderson, as an individual; Mr. Turk and Mr. Ornstein, as representatives of the Canadian Association of University Teachers; and Mr. Chartier, who is the president of the Métis National Council.

Welcome to each and every one of you.

We'll begin with five-minute opening statements from each of the groups represented, beginning with Mr. Cappe.

[Mel Cappe, President, Institute for Research on Public Policy]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me start by explaining why I'm here. I am indeed the president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, but I spent over 30 years in the public service of Canada. I served seven prime ministers. I was the Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet to Mr. Chrétien, but lest you think that somehow taints me as being a partisan in anyway, the first order in council naming me to the deputy minister ranks was by Brian Mulroney, and I ended my career in the public service loyally serving Prime Minister Harper and my then minister, Peter MacKay. So in the spirit of that non-partisan public service, my objective today is to try to help the committee deal with the government's objectives, as well as the opposition's objectives, and I think both can be met.

I've sent the Prime Minister and Minister Clement four letters. I never received a response from Minister Clement, and the Prime Minister's Office sent me an acknowledgement.

However, I never received a response from the Prime Minister. Even though my last letter was private, I would like to share it with the committee because, clearly, the Prime Minister never saw it.

I have four points.

The first point is that the long form of the census is a public good. That's a technical term, but it's a good one. It's used by a wide array of real people: banks, charities, and public health authorities.

I'll just use one example that I'm familiar with. My wife is the president of the Canadian Institute of Planners, and whether they're urban or municipal planners, they use this material all the time to plan municipal and rural infrastructure, transportation systems, for development planning, sewers, all of that. This is a public good. It serves the public and can be more efficiently collected by the state than by each individual group undertaking its own survey.

Second, the long form of the census ensures the reliability and robustness of other surveys. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has made it clear that he's going to have to reassess the reliability of the labour force survey now that we will have a voluntary long-form census. The labour force survey, by the way, is a compulsory survey, but we rely on it for measuring employment and unemployment. We need to have the long-form census to target other censuses to have reliability.

Third, I'm going to be presumptuous and suggest that I know what the objectives of this committee are, and I'm going to tell you what they are. I apologize for appearing presumptuous, but I think you should be out there to provide reliable and robust data, and also to minimize coercion. I agree with the government on this; we should be minimizing coercion. We should be minimizing the intrusiveness of the survey and the census, and we should be maximizing the privacy that's attached to it.

I have one more point that I'll come back to, but in my letter to the Prime Minister—and I've asked the clerk to share the letters with the members of the committee—I indicate there are four things you can do to deal with those objectives: You can have a mandatory census; you can remove jail terms, and now I think both sides agree with this; you can review the questionnaire and minimize the intrusiveness of the questions; and I would add to what the National Statistics Council has said, you can increase the penalties for the divulgation of private data. I think anybody who releases census data inappropriately should be seriously fined.

The last issue I want to present to the committee is that there's a higher-level issue here and it is an important principle of governance: to ensure the integrity of the statistical agency. I think the events over the course of this summer have raised questions about this larger significant issue. I think the committee should take its time, notwithstanding the deliberations on the census, to consider the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.

To my surprise, there are UN fundamental principles of official statistics. It was brought to my attention by Ivan Fellegi, the former Chief Statistician. This summer we've seen questions raised about who's responsible for methodology in collecting statistics. There are several principles in that UN charter that deal with independence, methodological integrity, and the role of politics, and I think the committee should study it carefully.

You might consider—and I'm not suggesting this is “the” answer, but it's “an” answer—amending the Statistics Act to make clear that the Chief Statistician, who is a statutory officer named in the Statistics Act and appointed by Governor in Council, has the sole responsibility for methodological and technical issues. I think Minister Clement was correct when he told this committee that this is a department of government that reports to the minister and that many questions around the choice of questions are political. But there is no doubt in my mind that the Chief Statistician should be the only person to comment on methodological questions in government and have the obligation to inform the chair of a parliamentary committee, or someone in public, of his views on methodological questions. I would urge the committee not to play partisan games with an important institution of governance.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Cappe.

Now we'll have an opening statement from Mr. McKinnon, chair of the National Statistics Council.

Go ahead, please.

[Ian McKinnon, Chair, National Statistics Council]

Good morning and thank you.

My name is Ian McKinnon and I chair the National Statistics Council, the body of volunteer external advisers from across Canada appointed to advise on matters affecting Canada's statistical system.

Today I continue the efforts of the statistics council, which has tried to find a resolution to the dispute set off when the government announced that the long-form census was being discontinued and that the voluntary household survey was being put in its place.

We believed the announced changes would harm the integrity and the quality of the Canadian statistical system. At the same time, the council recognized that concerns about intrusiveness and confidentiality should be addressed. As a result, the statistics council set out to find solutions that protected the quality of information Canadians depend upon, while responding to concerns over the way the census is conducted.

I believe we can resolve the issue by listening to what Canadians have said. While the initial decision of the government was made without public consultation, the debate and discussions since the decision was announced have been illuminating, to say nothing of a little surprising to statisticians who sometimes worry that people don't value their work.

Many groups have explained the importance of the long form for their activities. The public debate and the information released by the government in response to the order of the standing committee have made the situation clearer and have demonstrated that all expert advice, Canadian and international, as well as the results of the recent U.S. survey experiment, concur that a voluntary survey will not be able to fulfill the fundamental needs of our national statistical system.

What is then at risk? First, the proposed voluntary national household survey will suffer from significant selection bias, a fundamental flaw that has been examined in depth technically. The proposed changes will also likely result in Statistics Canada's not being able to publish robust, detailed information for neighbourhoods, towns, or rural areas. Much of the analytic work done by municipalities, police forces, private companies, health agencies, highway and transportation planners, school boards, and a large number of other groups depend upon small-area knowledge, and that data will no longer be available.

Our second concern is the potential loss of vital benchmark information. The mandatory long form means that StatsCan has an accurate benchmark for the demographics of populations that are difficult to reach or are less likely to complete a voluntary survey. This in turn means that sampling and weighting strategies for subsequent voluntary surveys can compensate for the bias from differential response rate and produce reliable and robust information. The importance of having census benchmarks available is readily apparent when one considers some of the populations that we know are more difficult to reach: young people making the school-to-work transition, vital to understanding Canada's economy and questions of efficiency but hard to reach; urban aboriginal populations; the affluent; new immigrants; and the list goes on.

Recognizing that the debate over the future course of the census has become heated without moving towards a resolution that meets both the concerns about privacy and intrusiveness, on one hand, as well as the need to maintain the quality of Canada's statistical system, the National Statistics Council has recommended a number of things.

First, as part of the formal consultation process, beginning with the 2016 census, StatsCan should examine each question to ensure that it meets rigorous tests for inclusion in the census. Each question should satisfy the needs of data users but only as weighed against the cost and intrusiveness of the question.

The census for 2011 needs to include a mandatory equivalent of the long-form census. It is the only way to safeguard the quality of the Canadian statistical system.

StatsCan should also examine respondent burden carefully, particularly that which is placed on Canada's farmers by the census of agriculture and other agricultural surveys from Statistics Canada. We have a precedent in this in the careful examination of the response burden on small business, where 10 to 15 years ago a major effort was made to reduce that burden.

Finally, the opportunity afforded by amending the Statistics Act to remove jail as a penalty should be used to include provisions related to the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, a code adopted by the UN to which Canada has already formally adhered.

The National Statistics Council believes these steps, taken together, can respect the valid concerns voiced by Canadians about privacy and intrusiveness while ensuring that the vital information that currently flows from the long-form census can be maintained and continue to serve Canadians' needs.

Further, the council has welcomed the government's acceptance of the council's recommendation, in its announcement that it intends to remove the threat of jail time for persons refusing to fill out the census, and the implicit recognition by the government, through its decision to include the official language questions in the short form, that the voluntary national household survey will not meet the requirements for robust and accurate small-area data.

There remains only one major issue that has been raised. Having removed the threat of jail, is the potential sanction of fines a disproportionate or intolerable burden on Canadians required to fill out the long-form census or its equivalent? My response is a firm “no”. The benefits to society and all its members of having a household fill out a 30-minute questionnaire, on average, once every quarter century, a form whose contents are released to no one, not companies, not other agencies, are beneficial for all of us.

In conclusion, we ask that the government carry on consulting and doing technical evaluations but collect the long-form data by making the national household survey mandatory. Canadians need and deserve no less.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. McKinnon.

Now we'll hear from Mr. Lam, who is the vice-president of the Canada First Community Organization.

[Joseph Lam, Vice-President, Canada First Community Organization]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I am representing Canada First Community Organization.

I just want to remind you gentlemen on this floor that it is a changing world. We are here to show support for the change.

I will not waste any time. I will just go into the topic.

Here are the reasons.

The adequacy of the long form is in doubt. It is 39 years old and a report that is 40 pages long. Some people may finish it anyway. Some of the answers they may not want to share with the government for privacy reasons and will simply just fill in what they like. How you are going to verify their information will be difficult.

I'm close to the community, so I'm just speaking on behalf of how they think.

All kinds of data are available, of which the long form is not the only source. It is old. In my opinion, it is inefficient and wastes time and money. I also feel sorry for the old way of getting things done; it is just terrible in terms of method and speed.

I just want to show you some examples of perhaps how to do things quickly as compared to slowly.

I'll give you the example of a subway extension from Yonge Street to Don Mills Road, along Sheppard Avenue. It took them 10 years to finish, as compared to Hong Kong, which built one of the largest airports, on two islands, on reclaimed land, back in the 1990s, which can handle 5,500 passengers an hour. What did they do? It cost $35 billion Canadian, and there actually were 10 projects along with that. There was the airport itself, a new town for its workers, a railway, two expressways, an underwater rail and road tunnel, and one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, longer than the Golden Gate Bridge, built in only eight years.

What I'm saying here is not to criticize the government; I'm saying that I want to see things get done more quickly and with less study.

I remind you that we have to compete globally. Just like the old Chinese saying, you are rowing your boat upstream, and if you don't row harder and faster, you may fall further and further behind and never be able to catch up.

The change of long form to a short form is a good direction to go in. Why not give it a try?

Some may say it's going to cost a lot of money. Yes. This form was first used in 1971. May I ask you gentlemen, are you still using your 1971 computer, or are you still driving your old car from 1971? So things need to change, and change in the direction of us having to compete globally.

If I may quote an article from The Economist, It is a global trend, pioneered, inevitably, in Scandinavia. Denmark has been keeping track of its citizens without a traditional census for decades; Sweden, Norway, Finland...among others....

The article goes on to say,Britain has seen hundreds of thousands of immigrants arrive from new eastern European members of the EU. Local governments complain that out-of-date information ignores these newcomers, leaving schools overcrowded, budgets stretched and houses scarce. At the same time, filling in the forms has become more onerous: what started as a short questionnaire about who lived where has turned into an inquisition about everything from toilet and car ownership to race and religion.

And it is costly. The cost is about $36 per head in America, versus 20¢ in Finland.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Lam.

We will now hear an opening statement from Mr. Henderson.

[James P. Henderson, As an Individual]

I have filled out the long-form census. I've filled out many census forms in my lifetime. This long-form census, I felt, was burdensome and really put a cost in terms of expense and time on my farming operation. I can only speak for myself, but I feel that something shorter could be just as efficient.

Also, the consequences we might endure if we don't comply with this are a little harsh. But we'll share our information with the government whenever they need it, provided it's a little bit more on our convenience.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Henderson.

We'll now hear from the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

[James L. Turk, Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm James Turk, the executive director. With me is Michael Ornstein, one of the senior folks in our research advisory committee and director of the Institute for Social Research at York University. We represent 65,000 academic staff at 122 universities and colleges across Canada.

I'd like to begin with a question for the committee. What do the following organizations have in common: the Vancouver Board of Trade; the Canadian Nurses Association; the Canadian Institute of Planners; the Chinese Canadian National Council; the Town of Halton Hills, which is Mr. Chong's town; the Canadian Association for Business Economics; the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants; the Canada West Foundation; the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada; the Canadian Federation of Independent Business; the Canadian Labour Congress; Alberta Health Services; the United Way of Canada; the Canadian Jewish Congress; the Canadian Public Health Association; the Chamber of Commerce in Burlington, Ontario, which is Mr. Wallace's town; the Canadian Council on Social Development; the Canadian Economics Association; the Governments of Ontario, Manitoba, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island; the Government of Nunavut; the Canadian Medical Association; the Toronto Board of Trade; the Canadian Association of Midwives; the Corporation of the County of Simcoe; the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops; the Canadian Chamber of Commerce; the Royal Society of Canada; the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada; the Ukrainian Canadian Congress; the cities of Edmonton—which is Mr. Lake's town—Fredericton, Ottawa, Toronto, and Victoria?

They, like the Canadian Association of University Teachers, have called on the Government of Canada to reinstate the mandatory long-form census. The decision to end the mandatory long-form census will mean a dramatic decline in the quality of economic and social information for governments, community social service agencies, and businesses. Provincial governments use the census to measure fundamental characteristics of their populations and to plan transportation, policies to cope with population aging, plans for elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education, plus a myriad of other things. Local governments and school boards use the long-form census to forecast demand for government services, to know about neighbourhoods so as to know where to locate schools, transportation services, community and social services, day cares, and language programs for new Canadians. Community service agencies use the census to determine the needs of their communities and their social and demographic characteristics. New businesses use the long-form census data to decide where to set up shop, examining measures such as education levels, incomes, and occupations in particular areas. Existing businesses use census data to know where to focus their marketing, where to locate stores, and what products to offer in different stores.

The mandatory long-form census as well is used as a reference point, a benchmark for other very important surveys such as the labour force survey used to measure unemployment and other key aspects of employment used in the national accounts.

Cancelling the mandatory long-form census prevents us from evaluating the quality of, and taking measures to correct, information from Statistics Canada and other sample surveys, thus undermining the entire system of Canadian social and economic statistics. This includes standard surveys needed to compare Canada with the OECD and other countries.

The mandatory long-form census is the primary source of information on equity in Canadian society, including the education, earnings, and occupations of aboriginal people, members of visible minorities, men and women, and persons with disabilities.

The mandatory long-form census has allowed Canadians to know about ourselves as a people. The current census is a series going back to 1871. It is hard to exaggerate the number of ways the census is used to describe our nation and how it has changed and the importance of knowing that history.

I'd like now to turn the remainder of the time over to my colleague, Michael Ornstein, who is going to address the question of why there is a problem with eliminating the mandatory long-form census, if the proposed voluntary survey collects information from as many or more people.

[Michael Ornstein, Member, Research Advisory Committee, Canadian Association of University Teachers]

Thanks, Jim.

Let me start by asking, what is distinct about the mandatory long-form census?

First, the response rate is very high, so the measure is free from bias to the maximum extent possible. This is just as important as the size of the sample.

Second, the questionnaire includes a great variety of questions. These are important not only because they're important individually, but because of the way they're combined. People have talked about cutting down the length of the survey, but that cuts down the ability to look at a variety of different things. For example, you might be interested in the poverty rates of children, but as a global statistic, that's a lot less interesting, in a way, than knowing how poverty rates of children vary across the country, among ethno-racial groups, for aboriginal communities, and so on.

Third, the long-form sample is very large, so we get accurate statistics from small communities in rural areas for individual racialized groups, and so on. None of Statistics Canada's smaller surveys is a substitute for the census for this reason.

Fourth, because there is a great deal of overlap in the questions from one census to the next, it is possible to measure change over time very accurately. Often the change is as important an indicator as the absolute level. So we talk about the aging of the workforce, not the age of the workforce. The critical thing is the change.

Much of the information obtained from the census is not available from any other survey, particularly questions dealing with racialization and immigration.

Finally, questions asked in the census are decided in a painstakingly careful process. The size of the enterprise and its cost are so large, there's a detailed rationale for the inclusion of every single question.

So the question is, why is there a problem with the proposed voluntary survey? In answer, the critical thing is that the response rate will be between 60% and 75% and the results will be biased by non-response. This is because the people who do not answer the survey are different from those who do. We know the response is lower among young people, more mobile people, poorer people, and so on. The problem is that with the switch from the mandatory census, it's not simply that the content of the survey is changed, but the critical thing is that change from one census to another can't be distinguished from non-response bias when you move from a survey with 4% or 5% non-response to 25% or 30% non-response.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Turk and Mr. Ornstein.

We now go to Mr. Chartier, President of the Métis National Council.

[Clément Chartier, President, Métis National Council]

On behalf of the Métis Nation, I thank you for inviting the Métis National Council to express its views here today on this most critical issue.

The Métis Nation is represented through democratically elected, province-wide governance structures from Ontario westward—namely, the Métis Nation of Ontario, the Manitoba Métis Federation, Métis Nation Saskatchewan, the Métis Nation of Alberta, and Métis Nation British Columbia. The Métis National Council has represented the Métis Nation nationally and internationally since 1983. Based on the citizenship criteria established by the Métis Nation in 2002, the number of Métis Nation citizens in Canada we estimate as approximately 400,000, roughly one-third of the aboriginal population.

Our citizenship criteria are based on self-identification, historic Métis Nation ancestry, and acceptance by the historic Métis Nation community. In the Powley decision in 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada, in addition to upholding the constitutionally protected aboriginal rights of the Métis, also identified criteria for membership in the Métis rights-bearing community, based on ancestral connection to and acceptance by historic Métis communities.

Since the Powley decision, the Métis National Council's five governing members—that is, the provincial governance bodies of the Métis Nation—have established citizenship registries to determine who can vote in their province-wide ballot box elections and receive programs and services delivered to them. These registries are largely built, but even when completed, will not cover the entire Métis population in our historic homeland.

We rely on the census for total population counts, as well as for socio-economic information on persons who identify as Métis or who have Métis ancestry. The census changes proposed by the Government of Canada will have a major impact on all aboriginal data, but in particular, the data on Métis. The federal government has no administrative database for Métis as it does for first nations through the INAC registry.

It did, however, sign a Métis Nation protocol with the Métis National Council in 2008, through which we are pursuing a number of key initiatives to improve the conditions and expand opportunities for our people. Through the protocol, the federal government and the Métis National Council have also engaged the five westernmost provincial governments in joint initiatives on economic development, and we are in the process of exploring how to apply this multilateral approach to other key areas such as education and health.

A critical starting point to these initiatives is developing a reliable database for the Métis population. The government's proposal to eliminate the long-form census questionnaire and have all households get the short form, supplemented by a household survey of one in three households to collect information previously gathered by the long-form census, causes us concern. The household survey, as we understand it, will be voluntary, and of course, people will know that. Lower-income households and households with lower education levels are less likely to respond to a voluntary survey than would middle-class households, increasing the possibility of skewed data from that survey.

Given the standard rule of statistics that the smaller the population the larger the sample size should be to obtain reliable data, any measure that will lower Métis participation will jeopardize the ability to collect accurate and reliable data, especially when the data is broken down by age, sex, income group, and geography.

The proposed changes will jeopardize our ability to conduct post-census surveys of aboriginal people, such as the aboriginal peoples survey. That survey, which we have relied on for much of our data, was based on responses to the long-form questionnaire.

Finally, the changes will certainly make it more difficult, if not impossible, to compare 2011 information with information from previous censuses. Such comparisons are important to establish growth rates and demographic and socio-economic trends. The fact of the matter is that we will not know the full impact of these changes on Métis data until we know how people respond to the voluntary survey. But we believe the federal government is clearly taking a needless risk that has the potential to thwart continued progress for Métis people.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chartier.

The committee members now have an hour and a half to ask questions and make comments.

Mr. Garneau, you have the floor.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In this country, we have many political parties and those political parties have different visions of where Canada should be going, and that's fine. However, I think it is crucial that all political parties have as a basic, fundamental principle the urgent need to make available the most accurate data on which to base their decisions and their vision—and when I say “accurate”, I mean accurate information that paints an accurate picture of the Canadian mosaic.

As we have heard from many speakers in the past couple of months, it is a mosaic. We have linguistic minorities; we have ethnic minorities; we have aboriginal peoples; we have rich people and we have poor people. We have a very diverse mosaic, and the policies we implement should make use of the best available information that accurately reflects that mosaic.

Who would have thought the census issue would be one that would appear in the summer of 2011? But it has become apparent to me in the past couple of months that there is a valuable exercise coming out of all of this.

Government has an obligation to explain more clearly to Canadians why we have this census, because I think there is quite a bit of questioning about why it is that people are being asked these questions. I think the government has a responsibility to explain more clearly why we go through this very complex exercise to ask questions of Canadians and why it has been a mandatory exercise. I don't think that's clear, and I regretfully have to say there has been quite a bit of misinformation in the process. That's the first thing.

The second thing the government must do is to explain to Canadians just how much effort is put into maintaining the privacy of that information, because I think that is also a concern that has been expressed.

I thank the speakers who have come here this morning, who have shed light on the process and have expressed their individual opinions, and I'd like to ask them a few questions.

I'll start with Mr. McKinnon.

I think part of the questioning coming from Canadians is based on the fact that many Canadians as individuals do not necessarily recognize why it is important for them to fill out the form and answer these questions. What is it going to change in their life? What is it going to do for Canada? There is perhaps the perception that this is just a bunch of information used by people who they have nothing to do with and that it's not going to affect their life.

I think that's part of the education we need to do, and I'd like to get your comments on that.

[Ian McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Garneau.

One of the most critical things the long-form census provides is small-area information. It's fine to talk to Canadians about the abstract and the importance of the labour force survey tackling questions such as efficiency in our economy, but the biggest impact on individuals is in terms of the services that are directly provided to them.

We heard, for example, criticism earlier of the question about where do you go to work and when do you leave there. However, it is precisely questions such as this that may have some interest at a national level, but at a neighbourhood level, will allow people to see where we need roads and how we can best plan our transit system. The lists of people you heard about earlier, the different organizations, tend to be the service deliverers who bring home local neighbourhood solutions and answers to people.

The information that gets generated allows for more efficiency, and even accountability. I think those are two benchmarks that are extremely important to the broader Canadian public and should be held up as things that drive government policy: First, they're made vastly more difficult without the precise and detailed information we have; and secondly, the alternative ways of getting this information are usually inadequate and invariably more expensive. So when we're talking about large numbers to conduct a census, in fact the alternatives tend to be vastly more expensive.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Cappe, another issue that has been brought up on frequent occasions is the fact that the long-form questionnaire serves as an extremely important benchmark against which other surveys that are not mandatory can be weighted. That's a notion that perhaps academics understand but perhaps the average Canadian doesn't, but it is fundamental to understanding how we get quality from voluntary surveys.

Could you explain to us why this is important, to have a benchmark mandatory long-form census in that respect?

[Mel Cappe]

Sure.

If you consider the ethnic diversity survey, which has been an important element of analyzing who we are and some of the challenges we face, the targeting of that survey requires a keen understanding of where Canadians are, what kind of Canadians they are, how they're engaged in society, and how they're engaged in the economy. Therefore, the robustness and reliability of the data from that survey depend upon the reliability of the census data we use for weighting.

It's the same thing with the labour force survey. The ethnic diversity survey unfortunately may not be conducted in future, but the labour force survey, which is fundamental to understanding how the economy is performing on a regular monthly basis, requires us to understand where to ask the questions. You're sampling and you want the sample to represent all of the economy and all of society. So to find the right sample in order to measure how we're doing in the economy, you need the census as the basis for the reliability of the sample.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cappe and Mr. Garneau.

Monsieur Bouchard.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank the witnesses for appearing before us.

My first question is for Mr. Cappe.

Could you explain to us how the statistics help the decision makers acquire a view of society as a whole and of its needs?

[Mel Cappe]

You've pinpointed the deep-seated source of concern I have about the decision to not conduct such a census. Politically, we have to understand who we are, what the major challenges we are facing are, and how to meet them. We need a database on which we can rely.

For instance, I would like to draw your attention to the economic decisions made by the Department of Finance. I spent part of my career there, and I used census data on many occasions. In particular, I did so when dealing with issues related to families, agriculture and dairy farmers. During my time as deputy minister of Human Resources Development, the department conducted research on how the unemployed are treated. We had to get an idea of where the seasonal unemployed are located. To do that, we needed a solid Labour Force Survey. However, as I just said to Mr. Garneau, a comprehensive census is necessary for the Labour Force Survey to be reliable.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Cappe, what makes this mandatory long-form census a tool that facilitates decision-making and the implementation of public policies that allow needs to be met? In what way does it help the government avoid making bad decisions?

[Mel Cappe]

If you don't mind, I will answer in English.

I'm always struck by the need for evidence-based policy.

As the president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, I would like to point out that many of our researchers base their research on the census and other surveys stemming from it.

If you think we should have policy-based evidence—that is, pick the policy and then go out and prove it—then you don't need a census.

If you want to base your policy on evidence, on the nature of the challenges that the country faces, on the nature of the problems of the performance of the economy, then you need the evidence first.

At the Institute for Research on Public Policy, we say that we ask questions before getting answers. I hope that the government does likewise.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. McKinnon.

Could you explain to us why the voluntary nature of the census could skew the data collected?

[Ian McKinnon]

Certainly, Monsieur Bouchard. The fundamental issue is what is called “response bias”. People who respond to voluntary surveys are, by their nature, different from those who do not. Those who do not are often more time pressed. They are people who sometimes feel marginalized within society. If there are linguistic barriers, they are less likely to respond.

Those problems can be compensated for if one has a benchmark that says there are this number of indigenous peoples, for example, in an urban situation; or there are these many people who are unilingual francophones in this area. Then you can look at surveys that are done voluntarily and reweight or change the sampling designs to ensure that you get everyone. Without the benchmarks created by a compulsory format that tests for those very basic issues with simple questions about income, ethnicity, language, and so on, you won't have that benchmark anymore. You may have a voluntary survey, but you can no longer adjust it to a known population.

That means not only are your census results less applicable in small areas, but very importantly, you no longer have the ability to conduct further voluntary surveys, or surveys such as the labour force survey, with confidence that you are accurately reflecting a cross-section of Canadians.