Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This amendment again was one recommended from the evidence that the committee has heard. As much as one would like to think that Bill C-36 made it impossible for the political interference and the collection of statistics that we saw in the 41st Parliament from ever happening again, from the decision that was made by Tony Clement, one must pause for a moment and say that Munir Sheikh is probably one of the bravest, most dedicated civil servants this country has ever seen. He lost his job rather than see Statistics Canada fail to do a mandatory long-form census while the minister pretended that nobody had told him that it would be a bad decision. I would urge the government to consider bringing back Munir Sheikh, because there you have a person of such impeccable integrity that we would know that our Statistics Canada division was run by someone who is independent.
However, the law at this point, as drafted, won't ensure that we won't see that happen again, so my amendment goes to the issue of the potential for interpretations by the court, that the questions that go to a particular segment of the population, and not to every Canadian, are somehow not mandatory. As you see, after line 36, on page 4, I would insert PV-2:
The census of population and census of agriculture are mandatory even if not all the questions are addressed to all respondents and regardless of the method used to obtain the information.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.