Industry Committee on Aug. 27th, 2010

[Peggy Taillon]

I'd love to respond.

As I've said, I think public awareness, public promotion, investing in compliance is crucial. So what I would offer as an option, if we're looking at how we can bring these sides together, is that instead of spending, what is it, $35 million in additional taxpayer money on the voluntary survey, why not take that money and use it to assist us in compliance of the mandatory tool?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Yes, but still fine people if they don't fill it out.

[Peggy Taillon]

As I said before, it's an unfortunate thing for me to say, but we are all equal and there are all kinds of other tools that we have to comply with; and if we're doing the public education right, I think our compliance would go up.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'm agreeing with you, I think, because I think compliance would go up as we convince people what value this has to the country they've chosen, or for citizens who have been here forever, the country they believe in. I believe we can get that compliance to the right number, too.

I feel bad for Victoria, because we're not really talking too much about what's out there.

I've made some points here about just plain public education and about voluntary versus mandatory, and I'd like to make some points about what types of questions are mandatory on this form, but Mr. McFarlane, I'd like to get some input from you.

[Lawrie McFarlane]

In the 2001 census—and it was all compulsory then, I guess—but in the compulsory short form, 20,000 Canadians identified themselves as Jedis. When the question was asked what their religion is, they said they support the Jedi religion. In other words, they've watched too many Star Wars movies.

The idea that you can get accurate information by compulsion has no support that I am aware of anywhere in the literature. What you can guarantee by compulsion is a response. You put a gun to somebody's head and that person is going to say something. It's almost like the argument for waterboarding. If you waterboard enough people, they'll tell you something. The question is, are they telling you something that is reliable and usable, and what damage have you done to their sense of trust in their government, particularly if the information you're asking for goes very close to their sense of private domain?

I don't think there's any inconsistency in using fines, and even prison, when the information is of the most fundamental sort and when we can all clearly see that it does not go to one's internal privacy. Needing to know where someone lives, what their language is, what their address is, or how many kids they have is in the public domain. If someone is not prepared to answer that information, then I think they are showing you a degree of contempt for society that justifies some additional measures.

But when you want to sit down and question someone about whether they have mental illness, or what their child-rearing habits are, or how much money they have in their bank account and what their pension is going to be that they've worked for, and when the person who's asking you that question is quite possibly a volunteer from down the street, I think you're going to get a lot of people who feel that it is so much an intrusion on their privacy that they're going to bend the results in order to skate around it.

The consensus I'm hearing here is that this information, in the long form as well as the short form, is very important and that the question this comes down to is, how can you get accurate information without putting a threat in place that destroys the relationship of trust between government and its citizens?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Well said.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. McFarlane.

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Still, in all this debate, we have yet to hear any evidence, really, of people in Canada who have been intimidated to any significant degree or felt threatened by a fine or a census worker. We still haven't had any of that come forward despite the witness list being open.

There have been cases where people got phone calls and didn't appreciate them. Ironically, that farmer will still get that phone call, because the census for agriculture is not voluntary.

In your opinion, what would the result be if we actually moved the short-form census to voluntary?

[Peggy Taillon]

Again, I think the repercussions are that you're going to get fewer people filling it out, less accurate data, less effective services on the ground for Canadians, and less accountability for spending tax dollars.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

The fine and the penalty are going to remain there, so nothing changes for that as well.

I asked this question earlier in terms of the previous panel. They are increasing the voluntary census to 30% of households. Do you have any idea in terms of how that number would be derived through statistical science? When they do a voluntary census, why not 40% or 50%? I'd actually be interested in knowing the cost if we provided every Canadian with a census sheet.

What's going to happen is that more and more Canadians are going to get the census information. The interesting thing is, I don't know what they're going to put on it, that you may or may not want to fill this out. I don't know how you promote that anyway.

What do you suggest in terms of a percentage? Is there any mathematical or statistical support?

[Peggy Taillon]

We've looked at that with some of the experts we work with, and it's their contention that it just increases. It's just more of the same. You're going to get certain groups that are going to fill it out, and the groups that typically don't fill it out are still not going to fill it out. So you're just going to get a larger sample that looks exactly like that.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

In a riding such as mine, where we have over 100 different ethnic cultures that are organized and English as a second language is a significant issue, we have several groups that do training, and so forth, on that. In the past, we actually had a lower result, and that's why we did the door-to-door canvassing, which isn't done anymore. That was dropped for privacy reasons. We were one of three ridings.

Do you anticipate that a riding such as mine will now suffer from a loss of information? They would know exactly how to pinpoint who did and who didn't respond and how to get the number up to a recoverable amount that's comfortable for a statistical analysis. Will a riding such as mine have further challenges?

[Peggy Taillon]

Yes, absolutely. What data you have will be skewed. You'll have a less representative number. It's harder to plan for services if the numbers are small.

Again, our main push for the mandatory census is that we believe that's where you get the greatest amount of information on all Canadians, and particularly on Canadians who are vulnerable and need government services, and services from other, non-governmental, providers.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes. That's what I worry about, that we're going to lose some services at the end of the day, too, especially for those pockets that are affected.

With the system in place right now, if things were changed, would it make more sense to spend a little bit more attention to having people fill out the forms and them getting assistance? Is that something that should be done? Are there any gaps in our census information right now, on the long form or the short form, some vulnerabilities that need improvement, even if we did go back to a mandatory one?

[Peggy Taillon]

Targeting groups and getting compliance is always an issue, whether it's mandatory or not. Investing money in that community-level mobilization, going to communities in a culturally appropriate and linguistically appropriate manner and engaging them in the right way is how you get compliance, so that's where the money should be invested.

As I said earlier, I would take the $35 million and put it there and test it out with the mandatory long form before I would throw out the baby with the bathwater.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Madame Taillon.

I think Mr. Noreau has something to say.

[Pierre Noreau]

Yes, and it is going to answer some of the questions that have been asked.

I think that we must not be naive: standard research surveys have response rates of around 30%. If you use electronic forms, the mail and so on, the response rate for all those surveys is roughly 30%. In fact, it is usually lower than 30%.

If you want accurate data, you have to have a sufficient number of respondents participating. We must not be naive. We are talking about people being available in the course of their everyday lives. This has nothing to do with their patriotism. We are talking about normal activities in a normal life. In a normal life, if someone has a whole slew of things to do in a day and this voluntary thing is added into the mix, then without a doubt it is the thing that person is not going to do. This means that the data are no longer going to be reliable. It is very simple. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that, if we explain things to people, they are going to be more willing to fill out the questionnaire. That is not how things work. But we do need to help people who have language problems, such as people who are illiterate. People who have difficulty filling out the questionnaire need to be able to get help. Generally, though, it would be a mistake to think that a completely voluntary questionnaire would have a satisfactory response rate. That is not true. The response rate would be around 30%, and we would clearly not meet our objectives.

Lastly, it is not so much the amount of information as the accuracy of that information that is the problem. Would some services be lost? The same services might exist, but they would not necessarily be tailored to people's needs. Accurate policies require accurate information. The higher the participation rate, the more accurate the data. It is as simple as that. It is simple math.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Merci, monsieur Noreau.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here this afternoon. It's getting close to the end of the day.

I'll start with Ms. Taillon.

Your discussion with us really surrounds the issue of accuracy. Would that not be an appropriate statement? You're concerned about accuracy.

[Peggy Taillon]

Sure.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I don't know if you know this or not, but I spent 13 years at municipal council, and some of the examples at the beginning of your five-minute presentation, I would say, were less than accurate. Would you agree that there are factors other than the census that go into the decision-making around where the schools would go, where the fire hall would go, or the size of the pipe that you would put in for the sewage system?

Would you agree that from a municipal point of view—because those are all municipal issues you dealt with—it would be accurate that it isn't just the census, the long-form census information, that decides where those things would go, that councils have to look at other information that's available?

[Peggy Taillon]

That's a great question. I wasn't suggesting that the census actually makes the decision. It actually assists in the decision-making. That's what I said.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

No, I have to take some exception to that, because the way you presented your argument was that I would be responsible for the death of somebody if I had moved the fire hall three minutes further away because we changed the census form from involuntary to voluntary.

So I want to be accurate, based on my experience, that there are a tremendous number of factors that go into the positioning of a school site, and the school can decide where they go based on provincial law. And the size of the pipe, to be frank with you, is not about how many bathrooms you have in your house; it's about how many people live in the house.

[Peggy Taillon]

It's a combination of both.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

We have a number of neighbourhoods in my community where we have lots of senior citizens with lots of bathrooms but they don't use the water system nearly as much as some other areas.

We're talking about accuracy. I think it was a nice speech, but it should be accurate in what we're doing.

There was another piece that you brought up that I thought was very interesting, but you didn't get to complete your thought and I'd be happy to hear it.

You stated to one of my colleagues, I think, that when the census form comes to a mailbox, you are not absolutely positive, based on your discussion this summer, that when people pull that out and see that it is from the Government of Canada and it's going to take them 25 to 40 minutes to do and it's 4, 5, or 40 pages long, or whatever we claim, they actually understand there are penalties attached to not doing it. They are citizens and they feel that it's a responsibility. The government has asked for it and they'll give it to them. It's going to Statistics Canada and not the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, or the NDP. It's going to Statistics Canada, and they have confidence in Statistics Canada.

Did the people you were talking to respond that they knew there were penalties attached to it?