When Minister Clement was here—and I've gone over his testimony—he said in a response to Mr. Garneau: That was a government decision. There's no question about that. I'm not trying to suggest otherwise. We've worked with StatsCan over the months to implement that kind of decision, to make sure that the data that is collected is usable and reliable for the purposes for which it was intended.
The key point to this testimony is the fact that he says he was working with Statistics Canada for a number of months. That would mean that the House of Commons was still in session at that time. So the knowledge and the machinery to change this was actually taking place prior to the recess of the House of Commons.
I'd like to hear, in your opinion—I want opinions—why it is that there has been no legislation tabled to this committee, despite us having actually a very shallow amount of legislation, to eliminate the fine and penalty with regard to the census?
The minister was actively working on eliminating the long-form requirement, keeping the short-form, which is ironic and interesting in that the agricultural census is being maintained with fines and penalties.
In anyone's opinion, why is it that the minister did not eliminate, or table legislation in this committee to eliminate, the penalties that are being professed continually of prisons and fines, and making it assumed that there's going to be basically a census-induced crime wave that needs to be dealt with in this country as we move forward?
I'll invite anyone to offer why that process wasn't actually done.