Industry Committee on April 11th, 2017

[Dr. Brian Allen]

Yes. As you said, the long-form census collects a great deal more information that is relevant not only to government, but also to industry and commerce. The main issue in 2010-11 had to do with whether the respondents would be randomly selected and required to respond. That would guarantee that the responses would be unbiased—in other words, that good data would be collected. So, it certainly is an essential feature for modern society.

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

I just have a further question in follow-up. Do you have any comments on the relationship between Statistics Canada and other federal departments and agencies that are involved in the policy-making processes?

[Dr. Brian Allen]

Probably not. I'm not associated with Statistics Canada at all, in any way. I'm just not on the inside. Again, if my colleague who is president had been here, he would, I'm sure, have had very useful comments.

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

Fair enough.

I guess I'll go to Paul Schreyer, who is with us from Paris.

You talked about the advisory councils and some of their sizes. You mentioned the Irish one having eight members, and you mentioned 10 and 12. What are the advantages of small advisory councils as opposed to larger ones? Also, are there any medium-sized ones of, let's say, 20 or 25 that you're aware of, and how effective are they?

[Paul Schreyer]

I guess the trade-off is between the reactivity and operability of a council versus its full representativity of different parts of society in the country. I guess you need a minimum level of diversity that is reflective of the society that you want to cover. As I said before, I sit on the Swiss Federal Council, which has a relatively good representation of.... You have trade union members. You have representatives of business. You have academia and you have someone from the international side—that's me—and then statisticians. It's a group of 10, and it can meet two or three times a year. It can respond rather quickly when questions come up, which would probably be more difficult if it were a group of 50 people, because then you get into issues of how to vote, and you need elaborate orders of proceedings, and so on.

I think the main advantage of a small group is that it can act quickly. It can react without major bureaucratic movements.

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

Thank you very much. That was important to hear.

Margrit, part of what the organization you represent is proposing is a requirement to seek consent for the transfer of census-related data to Library and Archives Canada 92 years after a census.

What are your comments about that particular number and your organization and what it represents in trying to access data for research purposes, etc.?

[Dr. Margrit Eichler]

My understanding is that people can actually refuse to have the data released. If it's on a voluntary basis, then we would be all in favour of having those data accessible because it makes sense in order for genealogical types of studies. It makes sense when you're pursuing an issue where you need to correlate or look for causality in a way that you haven't done previously.

We would be in favour of that.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

We're going to move to Mr. Nuttall.

You have five minutes.

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

Thank you for the presentations. I will direct my questions to Mr. Schreyer off the top here.

You just mentioned you're on the Swiss advisory council. What's the appointment process for that council?

[Paul Schreyer]

The members are appointed by Parliament. There's a suggestion made by the chief statistician, but the approval process goes through the Swiss Parliament.

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

So that would be somewhat similar except it's being proposed to go through cabinet here.

Sorry? Go ahead.

[Paul Schreyer]

I didn't quite hear what you said, sorry.

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

That would be somewhat similar to what's being proposed here in this bill.

Has there ever been a circumstance where there's a feeling that partisanship has gotten in the way of who is being appointed to the committee or how the appointments are taking place?

[Paul Schreyer]

Not that I knew of, or certainly not since I've been a member of that group.

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

You mentioned in response to Mr. Sheehan's earlier questions that the composition of the committee, and certainly the number of persons on the committee being down to 10 versus a much larger one, was good for management and how quickly the committee could react, etc.

What are the strengths of having a larger committee? Are there any? Are there things that we should be taking into consideration on that front, or is your opinion that the smaller, the better, within reason?

[Paul Schreyer]

I think there are two aspects that come into play here. One is how well you want the various parts of your society represented. Of course, the bigger the country and the more provinces, nationalities, and so on that you have in the country, the more there is a cost of having a small group, because not everyone will be well represented.

The other question that was raised at the very beginning of the conversation here was whether there are other groups that could cover the more technical aspects in advising the chief statistician? I do think it is important to have technical groups that advise on, say, the consumer price index, trade statistics, and so on, but those can be different from the council. They don't have to be integrated into it.

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

I have one other question, because you have a breadth of experience from around the world, I guess. Is it common practice for the advisory councils to be appointed by cabinet, and not by a third party chief statistician or some other body?

[Paul Schreyer]

There's no clear pattern here. Really, you have all sorts of configurations in different countries, so I don't think you can make a general statement on this.

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

To your knowledge, what percentage of the countries that you have been dealing with would have a cabinet appointment of these advisory councils?

[Paul Schreyer]

I don't think I can throw out a figure here without—

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

Is it a majority? Is it a majority of them?

[Paul Schreyer]

Really, I can't give you a good answer. I can research this a bit and come back to you, if you are specifically interested in this. We are just building up a little database on this, for the OECD countries at least, so I can provide that information later on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We're going to move to Mr. Jowhari. You have five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all the presenters from all over the place.

I want to go back to the mandatory long-form census. It was great that we had the opportunity to bring it back in 2015. However, I did not receive a long-form census in 2015 to complete. I received the short form online, and I'm hoping we're going to be able to address that with this legislation.

So I have two questions for each of you. First, do you feel that the long-form census should be mandatory? Yes or no?

Second, if you feel that this legislation does not address it, what specifically would you change? Let's start with Madam Eichler.