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?