Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of you for being here today.
I'm going to volunteer some information, so I know some of you will find it inaccurate.
The real thing we're talking about today here—and we can blow a lot of smoke and talk about a lot about other things—is whether the long form should be voluntary or mandatory, whether there should be a punishment for not filling out the form. We've discussed whether it's jail time or fines, but the one question that's at this table today is, should the long-form census be voluntary or mandatory?
We're not talking about the short form. The short form is going to be the way it is and it will have the number of questions it needs to do that job.
We can throw in a bunch of other stuff if we want. Mr. Rutherford just threw in the cost of it, or we can talk about the structure of it. We've talked a bit about privacy and stuff, but let's get the smoke out of the way. We're talking about whether it's accurate and whether voluntary versus mandatory will do the job it's supposed to do.
Mr. Rutherford, you asked earlier why some other people weren't here. I know some great people who are back home volunteering on things. It's the middle of summer. Tomorrow morning I'll attend a firemen's barbecue. They're all volunteer firemen—and trust me, I trust most things they say to me.
Mr. Bélisle, you talked about that pride-in-Canada piece, that people are happy to do it. Whether it's those same volunteer firemen or the United Way workers, or the baseball coaches, hockey coaches, or whatever, these are all volunteers in Canada, and they're happy to do it because they make Canada better.
I want to take the upside of this, that I believe people will voluntarily fill out this form and send it back because they believe it's the right thing to do. You just said that yourself, that the pride-in-Canada aspect is a big part of this. I think that's right. And it's not just my riding. Even in the riding that Mr. McCallum described, of 52% new immigrants and that type of thing, I believe they have pride in Canada. Coming to Canada as immigrants, they've chosen Canada over every other country in the world.
Mr. Oh, you represent an immigrant group, people who have chosen to come Canada. I'm guessing that your group is voluntary. You don't fine your people if they don't join your group, do you?