Industry Committee on Aug. 27th, 2010

[Victor Oh]

No.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

So it's voluntary, and do you consider the information you collect from your members to be pretty accurate to make decisions on their behalf? I would think so. I'm a businessman myself and I voluntarily do the same.

But for new Canadians—and I'm going to ask this as nicely as I can, because I'm not one, but you represent some—if their first interaction with their government was someone knocking on their door with a census form asking a question or some questions that they would not think to be appropriate or didn't want to answer, to them, what's that relationship like?

I think in the 2011 census we'll be asking a question on religion. A new immigrant to Canada might not want to answer that, and then they're threatened with some punishment for not answering it. How is that relationship with their new country?

[Victor Oh]

I think they're going to have a choice of voluntarily answering the question.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

That's what we're trying to decide here today: Is it mandatory or voluntary that they answer those questions? It's as simple as that. If the person at the door starts writing down their physical description because they chose not to answer the question, I don't know, but in terms of the Canada I'm proud of, that isn't it.

It's my thought that the volunteer versus mandatory question here is exactly that. We can question, if we want, whether we'll now send it to 30% of the households, or as Mr. Rutherford just suggested, send it to them all, and if we need a representative sample, we'll get back the answers. It's about it being voluntary or mandatory. It's about punishing people for not doing it.

Mr. Bélisle, I'll give you a shot, because you talked about pride in Canada and people doing things with that belief. Are you suggesting that they won't earnestly come forward?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Preston.

Monsieur Bélisle.

[Denis Bélisle]

Indirectly, I do. You mentioned some great people such as firemen and volunteer coaches—and I'm one of them. Those people will definitely answer the survey. But from being there, from having done numerous kinds of surveys, I don't think, as of right now, the survey has been promoted as something essentially Canadian. It hasn't been there; it's not there. At the moment, the census is not associated with Canadian pride. That's something we should undertake, but it's not there now.

So my answer is that I do not think you will have a valid and reliable portrait of the Canadian citizenry with a survey that is not mandatory. That is my belief.

[Dave Rutherford]

I just want to interrupt a little bit. I have an e-mail that's somewhat representative of my audience. This person starts out by saying they're one of the many who had to fill out the compulsory long-form census form and they did not fill out one answer correctly.

I think this is the assumption that's being made incorrectly, that because you're forced to fill it out, you're going to tell the truth. I don't know how you could possibly determine whether people who fill out a mandatory form or a voluntary form are telling the truth, and just because it's mandatory, that they will be telling the honest truth in the survey.

You're not. So you are basing your statistical analysis on possibly a falsehood. You don't know if that represents Canadian values or the reality of where they are.

The other thing is that I don't think it's patriotic, sir, to know whether I have a loose tile in my bathroom or whether the railing on my stairs is loose. I don't think that's a measure of my patriotism to reveal that to the government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rutherford.

Mr. Garneau.

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

Merci beaucoup.

My first question is to Ms. Vonn.

It's very clear to me from your testimony that the B.C. Civil Liberties Association has an extremely strong focus on the issue of privacy. You made that very clear in your opening remarks. Yet in the case of the long-form census, what I understood you to say was that there's an important dimension of public good involved in the gathering of that information and that, so far, Statistics Canada appears to have had a very strong focus on the critical importance of ensuring privacy.

So while you cite many other examples of issues where privacy is far more of a concern in government, would my interpretation of what you say be essentially correct?

[Micheal Vonn]

Yes, that is essentially correct. I would just alter slightly the notion that we understand that the long-form census is a public good.

With the requisite humility of non-experts in statistical matters, we leave it for statisticians to determine whether the mandatory census is the best way to go about extracting these data, because there is clearly some data that's needed. Our understanding of that expert testimony is that it is. Given that, we agree with the Privacy Commissioner that the privacy implications appear to be proportionate.

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

Thank you.

It seems to me that, in this debate on the census, understanding the issue is the main problem. It has become evident over the past two months that not all Canadians understand or are interested in the census. There is a great deal of misinformation that, unfortunately, has been spread in part by my Conservative colleagues.

I would like to know what you think of the following comment by the member for Kootenay—Columbia.

He is quoted as saying that Ottawa is retaining the long-form census, but unlike in the past, it will now be voluntary rather than mandatory, and that this is how it should be. He says, Going about it in this way is far more accurate and intelligent than if the system had continued by coercion.

I would like to have your comments on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Garneau, who are you directing your question to?

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

First to Mr. Bélisle, then Mr. Beaud and then Mr. Veall.

[Denis Bélisle]

If I have understood correctly, he is saying that a voluntary survey or poll would have greater validity.

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

Yes. In fact, he said “far more accurate”.

[Denis Bélisle]

I do not understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Beaud.

[Jean-Pierre Beaud]

I have already answered this question several times. The size of the sample—whether it is 10%, 20% or 30%—is not a problem. We spoke about this earlier. It is the strategy used to collect the information that is the issue.

All the scientific literature on this subject indicates that voluntary samples are more problematic. Given that, in practice, we have not used a voluntary long form, what we are saying is based on our knowledge of what took place previously. Will it be 70%, 75%, or 80%? We do not know. The problem is that the damage will have been done. There will be a break in the data series used to carry out analyses and enabling governments to make good decisions.

I do not believe that many statisticians or people interested in these matters would defend this. The quality will diminish. To what extent? It is difficult to say because we have not yet gone through the exercise.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Merci, monsieur Beaud.

Mr. Veall.

[Dr. Michael R. Veall]

With a voluntary survey, the statistical problem is not the answers of those who do answer, it is the answers of those who do not respond.

Mr. Rutherford made the good point that you might think people who are disadvantaged would see it to their advantage to answer questions like this. However, we can compare responses on voluntary and mandatory surveys and it turns out that this is not so. Low-income people tend not to respond.

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

Thank you.

Just as a final comment, because one of the witnesses—you specifically, Mr. Rutherford—questioned whether people who had difficulty with language would be filling out the questionnaire, we had Ms. Elisapee Sheutiapik, who is a board member of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, speak to us at the last hearing, and she told us that with a voluntary survey, because of language difficulties, nobody in the Inuit community would fill it out.

It is precisely because of the mandatory nature of this program that the government offers help for people to fill out the questionnaire. That's why it is filled out, because help is offered. That's why there's a 95% response rate on this.

I just wanted you to be aware of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Garneau.

Mr. Rutherford, we're going to give the floor to Mr. Lake, and you can make your intervention afterwards when Mr. Lake is finished his intervention.

Go ahead, Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Garneau quoted a Conservative member and made the assertion that he was speaking for the entire party when he did so. So I assume Justin Trudeau was speaking for the entire Liberal Party when he said, Ignatieff, he's a little all over the place sometimes.... He says this, he says that — he contradicts himself. For me, he's not someone with... maybe he has the intelligence, but maybe not the wisdom required.

I assume, Mr. Garneau, that he was speaking for you as well.

Anyway, I'll move on to the topic at hand. One of the things I want to focus on is just the actual question here, and again, let's get down to the fact that really what the government is saying is that it's not a statistical question. It's not a question of whether we like information. We all like information and we all want to do the best we can to solve the problems facing this country. The question we're trying to answer here today is, should the government force people, under threat of fine or jail time, to answer the questions in what was previously the long-form census?

We agree that we have a mandatory short form that most Canadians would actually associate with a census—who you are, where you live, and those kinds of things. But when it comes to the long-form questions, questions such as what time you left for work or how much housework you did—and I'll come to you, Mr. Murdoch, and ask you this question—should one of the people you represent, someone from a poorer background who the opposition party has stated repeatedly is the least likely to answer the questions, or a new Canadian or someone from an aboriginal community, the people who are least likely to answer the questions, be forced to answer those questions under threat of jail time or fines? Should a single mother with three kids, living at the poverty line, be threatened with a $500 fine because she doesn't want to answer a question about how much housework she did last week?

[Ken Murdoch]

I may disagree with jail time, I may disagree with a $500 fine, but I think you have to have something behind a mandatory return that requires people—

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

So you would say that she should be fined because she doesn't want to tell the government how much housework she did last week.