Industry Committee on April 6th, 2017

[Ian McKinnon]

Yes. There were several periods. As soon as the government announced that it intended to increase the independence of Statistics Canada, the chief statistician asked us to begin to give him advice that he could convey to the minister about our thoughts. There was a working group formed. Professor Thomas was one of its members, along with other people who had greater experience with organizations such as this, or with changes.

We prepared papers, conveyed them to the parliamentary secretary of the minister, had meetings with him, consulted back with the larger council, and have continued to iterate as the process has unfolded. We have met subsequent to the tabling of this legislation. We've had conversations in that same working group to provide advice to the chief statistician.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Is it your position and the council's that most of your input and comments made it into the amendments, or are there others that still need to make their way there?

[Ian McKinnon]

In fact, before the details of the bill were out, we had already submitted, and we see some of the provisions of the bill reflect advice we gave. Our expertise is not in legislative drafting, as you can appreciate, so we focused on the principles and objectives, and we see many of them reflected in the bill and the amendments. There are areas of specific interest, such as Professor Thomas's, which some of these people have made suggestions about and also have resulted in our memos.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Everything that you said I take with a great deal of respect, no doubt about it. The one point, though, that I continue to come back to is that the 2011 situation happened and we've moved on, and I think we're probably, overall, better for the changes. I truly believe that one of the key pillars of the independence is the actual behind-the-scenes performance of the computing and the data centres to truly make Statistics Canada a worldwide entity. It doesn't make any sense to collect all this great data and then have your servers crash when you go to publish it.

What role does the council or what role do you or any of the other guests feel we need to play? Do we need to give the chief more latitude to be able to move where he or she feels the need to move to get better and more robust performance from our data centres? What is it, because I truly don't believe Statistics Canada to be independent if it's still got this cement block tied around its foot, which is Shared Services Canada.

[Ian McKinnon]

The National Statistics Council has not involved itself in what we would view as operational issues within the agency. If we see problems on things like delivery or process, we'll speak up. Frankly, as I said in my remarks, we don't have the expertise to make a sophisticated judgment about the appropriate case.

However, I will say that as soon as the government announced its intention to make changes to enhance the independence of StatCan, one of the things the working group of which I was a member did was to canvass the former heads of other similar statistical agencies in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. They said they felt a significant element of their independence flowed from their control of their informatic structure, and we passed that forward.

Again, we don't have the capacity or experience to make judgements, but we convey that.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

That's fair enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Professor Cappe, you may answer very briefly.

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

I'm not going to give you a simple answer. I was deputy minister of three departments. When I was deputy minister of the environment, we had the supercomputer in Montreal doing the weather forecasting. We had our own people there. They're now part of this infrastructure, Shared Services Canada.

It can work. There are advantages to having that kind of overall government purchasing and control.

There are disadvantages. We know the RCMP and Statistics Canada have said they want their control back. I have to say that I think it is too early to tell, and there are potential advantages from having that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Mr. Sheehan, you have five minutes.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much. This question, first of all, is for Mr. Sheikh.

It was my understanding that an important factor in your resignation was the government interference in statistical matters in a way that made it seem like you as the chief statistician at the time had agreed with the decision. I just want to know if that is correct.

Further to that, I'll get to Bill C-36. Had it been in place at the time, how might the transparency around the direct power provision have altered the events? Would it have prevented the perception that you were on board with the government's decision? Finally, would you have felt more comfortable keeping your position as chief statistician knowing that the accountability for the decision clearly and transparently rested with the government and not you?

[Dr. Munir Sheikh]

In my testimony to the committee seven years ago, I said that I had two jobs, one was to give my best advice to the government, and the second was to implement whatever the government decided.

I think it's pretty obvious by now that the advice that we gave the government was to continue with the long-form census. The government said no. They wanted the national household survey. StatCan's response was, “You're the boss. We'll do whatever you want.” We tried to do our best with the survey.

It was when the minister started to blame Statistics Canada for recommending the survey and saying that the chief statistician personally gave him that advice that it became very difficult for me to continue in that job, especially since he had done it a number of times.

I did my very best to encourage him to stop, but he did not stop. I think the point came when I said, “I can't work in this situation because it leaves the impression that we gave bad advice to the government.” That was my only way to send a message that we did not give that advice.

If Bill C-36 had been part of the Statistics Act at the time—I have already dealt with that in my comments, and I have said that I don't think anything would have been different. I would still be gone, and the minister would still have said the same things. We probably would be sitting here today talking about Bill C-36, but it would not have changed anything.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much.

I know that my community of Sault Ste. Marie is very glad that the long-form census is back. The last data that were released are really important for a community of our size to have because they weren't really captured previously. That allows our economic development agency in our city to really advance some thinking and some planning for the future. I think your advice was well warranted at the particular time because it's being well received now. Thank you for your work in the past.

My next question is for our friends from the Universities of Toronto and Manitoba. It's my understanding that many countries that have independent statistical systems continue to treat the decisions to make a survey mandatory as a regulation due to the political implications involved. In other words, they continue to ensure the government has some powers to decide what's mandatory and what's not. However, the statisticians who were here previously, Mr. Smith and Mr. Fellegi, seemed to think the government should not have any say whatsoever, no matter the circumstance, because the decision to make a survey mandatory or voluntary is strictly a methodological matter.

As experts in your own right in the field of politics and public administration, do you think it's reasonable that the government, in a democratic, Westminster parliamentary system, keep some form of directive power when it comes to decisions that involve state, power, or coercion?

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

I can go first, if you like.

I agree with you that our system of responsible government is based on the prime minister and ministers of the crown being required to explain and defend what they've done in public and to be held accountable ultimately through elections, before the House of Commons, and even, dare I say, the Senate. You can't expect ministers to be completely indifferent to the scope of questioning in a census, the types of questions they're asked, how intrusive they are, and the range of things that are inquired about. I think there has to be some final role for the cabinet.

What I was suggesting in my brief was, on that relevant section, proposed subsection 4.1(1), where it authorizes the minister to intervene on a technical operational matter, they made clear that the chief statistician be allowed to voice objections in a public manner to that, and that it's not fatal to their reappointment.

Undoubtedly, when you go to work the next Monday morning, it's a little tense between you and the minister and the government. There is no doubt about that. This is a last resort. It comes after long negotiations. It's to recognize the fact that there's no clear dividing line between policy and operations. It's a blurred line. In the mind of the minister, this may look like technical matters to the chief statistician, because in mind of the minister this is a sensitive policy matter that he heard a lot of conversation about from the people he interacts with. I think there's a way to strengthen the protection against a repeat of 2011.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We're out of time.

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

I, I—

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

I'll use my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

It's up to you.

You have five minutes, Mr. Nuttall.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

You can jump in there.

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

I was just going to answer Mr. Sheehan that the Minister of Finance has just asked StatsCan to do some survey work on housing. He didn't say to make it a mandatory, compulsory piece.

It's conceivable that the government wants a universal, census-like survey and wants to make it mandatory. I can't imagine what that might be, but I wouldn't think it's a....

I understand Mr. Fellegi's point. Yes, it is methodological. What's a right survey? But we shouldn't constrain the government to say that you can't make it mandatory.

Thank you.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If I may continue, I want to jump back to some questions that I had asked of the minister and members of this committee previously with regard to the appointment process for the new advisory council. I think there has been some talk about the right number of individuals on the council as well as how that happens.

Is 10 the right number? Does it make a difference?

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

I think the interesting question is, what do you want it to do?

If it's a methodological advisory committee, it's different than if it's a representational committee. If it's representational, then yes, you want to make it a broader group, as Mr. Baylis raised earlier. I'm not sure what you want it to be.

The other thing is, it isn't the only advisory committee. You could have a complementary methodological based committee. You already have all these other groups advising on specific surveys. There is not a right answer.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

So the outcome you're looking for will determine the number of individuals in the community.

[Ian McKinnon]

Yes.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

The follow up to that is this: with it being transitioned back into an appointment process through the cabinet itself, is there a fear that this may become a partisan dumping ground? It almost goes back to the original question, which is, what type of committee it is, and so on.

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

I have more confidence because, frankly, there's a political consequence to making it a political dumping ground. So you're not going to let them get away with that. That's the confidence that I have in the process.