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.