Perhaps I could say something. I am not here to put the government on trial. You have your own debates, and that is fine, but we are trying to see what can be done in a given society to gather accurate information about that society. I believe that there is some consensus around the table about the need to do that. The problem, as we well know, is that the response rate for a completely voluntary questionnaire would be roughly 30% or 35%, which means that the reliability of the questionnaire and the census would become extremely fragile. The less reliable the survey results are, the less people will want to take part.
In fact, from the moment a questionnaire is made voluntary, a process will start whereby people are going to be less and less willing to fill it out. Since the data will not be reliable, people are going to wonder why they should bother answering the questionnaire. This creates a feeling of alienation in the public. This is well known. It has been studied in Sweden and Great Britain, two countries that changed the rules in midstream. Today, it is very difficult to restore the credibility of the British and Swedish censuses because people are not interested in the census now. That is what we must avoid.
The question you asked earlier is very timely. Certainly, in a very small population, a personalized approach can be used to convince people to respond to a questionnaire or survey. If I understand correctly, that is what happened in your case, in the public health field. But in the case of a population as large as Canada's—and this would also apply to Quebec specifically—it would not be possible to take the same approach. It would not be possible to take an individual, positive approach and personally convince everyone to answer the questions. Another sort of system or framework is needed. That is how the mandatory system came about. The positive approach requires different methods. It should not be ruled out, though.
That said, I believe that, for vulnerable populations, seniors—the Chinese community was mentioned earlier—it would be a good idea to think about specific needs. We need to support these people so that they fill out the form. There have to be positive incentives, and there needs to be support for populations that we want to reach but that ordinarily have no incentive to respond to the questionnaire or do not feel obliged to do so. This would increase the quality of the measurement. It should not preclude having a general framework to ensure that the census data are clear and therefore making the questionnaire mandatory. One thing does not rule out the other.