Right, but in general the chief statistician would now have the authority.
In the current system, all business surveys are mandatory. On the household side, the census is mandatory, and the labour force survey is the only other mandatory household survey at this point. If the chief statistician decided for technical or methodological reasons that a mandatory survey for something such as health was required to elicit the information that the government wants, he could make it mandatory. The long-form census is a survey. He has the authority for the methodology, the survey methods, including it being mandatory versus voluntary.