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?