Evidence of meeting #137 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was household.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
Again, at the aggregate level—they would never be able to get at who said what.
5:15 p.m.
Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.
In your opinion, are some banks concerned that other banks might be able to benefit from their data being in the pool?
5:20 p.m.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
I don't see how. I'm sorry. Do you mean—
5:20 p.m.
Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.
If a big bank sends in data, a small bank or credit union then might say, “Wow, look at this great data that we got from Statistics Canada from banks.” Is that providing a competitive advantage to smaller banks and is that why the bigger banks are worried?
5:20 p.m.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
The data we get from them would never be shared other than at the aggregate level.
5:20 p.m.
Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.
No, but what about the results of the data^
5:20 p.m.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
The results would be available for everybody, all Canadians. That's why we collect it. We don't collect it for us. We collect it to share it with all Canadians.
5:20 p.m.
Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.
Right.
You talked about the declining response rates of the old system. Can you explain how the old system actually worked?
5:20 p.m.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
Sure.
This is one example. As I said, there are a number of changes that are happening in today's society that require us to move in this direction. Previously, one of the surveys was the survey of household spending. We used to go out to 20,000 households. We used to actually give them a diary to keep track, and we still have.... We've suspended that project right now. Individuals had to actually take their salary and log every single expenditure, with the receipts, and be able to take their salary and calculate it to about a 2% to 3% variance. In many cases, we found that they didn't know, or they didn't have the receipts, or they weren't completing it.
It's a growing problem that we've had. Now, 60% of those we go to either refuse or don't give us access to them.
5:20 p.m.
Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.
I have five seconds left. Do I have time for a very quick question?
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
You have no seconds left. Thank you very much.
We're going to move to the final two minutes.
Mr. Boulerice, you have the last two minutes.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Arora, you said earlier that you intend to communicate with Canadians about this pilot project, ask them what they think about it and inform them. This seems to be wishful thinking. I didn't hear much detail on how you were going to proceed. Can you tell us more about that?
5:20 p.m.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
As I said earlier, we are still developing the pilot project. We want to work with the institutions and the commissioner to develop the communications plan. Of course, the institutions themselves will communicate with their clients, and we will inform Canadians. We have published several documents on our website. We will also hold several information sessions during which we will answer Canadians' questions, explain why this process is necessary and how we will protect their privacy and confidentiality.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
How many information sessions will there be: three, 30, 50? Can you tell us?
5:20 p.m.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
Given the concerns expressed by Canadians, we will, of course, increase the number of information sessions and the amount of information to be provided to them based on their needs.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Okay.
In addition, we live in a digital world that offers many opportunities for malicious people—I'm talking about hackers—to break into systems, appropriate information and use it for various purposes. Just recently, we have seen this with Facebook. This company is still able to hire staff who should normally be able to protect people's pages, their personal or confidential information, and so on.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
That's too bad, especially since it was a good question.
5:20 p.m.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
I do recognize that we've had a lot of discussion here, and the chief statistician should be commended for coming. That being said, even he in his testimony today has pointed out that there are various aspects of this so-called pilot project.