The Statistics Act is totally unclear on the issue and Bill C-36 is silent on the issue.
What I am suggesting, making section 21 subservient to 22, would—in my view—solve the problem. The way it would solve the problem is that section 4 gives the issue of methodological decisions to the chief statistician, covering all areas in section 22. So as soon as 21 is made subservient to 22, the chief statistician would then be able to prepare a long-form census, and he is the one who makes the decision as to whether something is voluntary or mandatory. Of course it would be mandatory.
However, for accountability, you want to make sure the Government of Canada has the final say on it, and with section 21 around, the Government of Canada can approve it, reject the chief statistician's advice, and send him a directive at that time and say, “For the following reasons, we are not going to accept what you are recommending.” To me, that simple change would solve the problem.