Evidence of meeting #4 for Official Languages in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
Under the law, the decision rests with cabinet. Our job is to provide the right questions to collect high-quality data.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
I'm trying to sort out what you're telling me. You are essentially telling me that the questions on the three elements, which should normally satisfy the Supreme Court, are already in the system. That's what you're telling me. Are they already in the long form?
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
The only reason we tested the five questions is because they were not there before, and depending on the decision that will be made, they will be asked for the first time. This is new.
Liberal
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Thank you for being present here this afternoon for a very important question.
I'm going to go straight to the heart of the matter in terms of the legalities. It seems as though Stats Canada has been testing the patience of Canadians, perhaps members of this committee also and those of the official language minority communities.
Does Stats Can realize that it is potentially exposing itself to the risk of being sued by the official language minority communities for the repeated omission to serve and to record all three of the categories of section 23? Are you aware of that?
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
We are committed to providing good data to Canadians. That is our sole objective—
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
We are at the crux right now to be able to historically—historically, and I'm going to put emphasis on that—get precise data to be able to help the crying needs of minority communities across the land.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
We're confident that, once the decisions are made, we will provide data of high quality. It is not the first time that we will provide data of high quality. We have always done that—
Liberal
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
I will argue that we're one of the best in the world, and we will bring that expertise of all our 6,000 people at Statistics Canada—
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Sir, the quality that has been given thus far has only focused on one group of individuals in virtue of section 23. I'm not the first to tell you that. You've been doing this over the course of the last seven censuses. We are at a point right now, the crux, where we have this opportunity to be able to remedy a situation that has gone on for far too long, and there's a crying need.
Do you agree that, if we do not address this pressing need today, we are exposing ourselves to lawsuits? Yes or no?
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
I will once again emphasize that we would not have stabilized our program for official languages; we would not have done rounds and rounds of qualitative testing; we would not have had a committee of experts; we would not have subjected 135,000 households to a module of five questions, if we weren't serious about meeting the needs of this very important group, and I think that's not lost on cabinet.
When we've done all this work, we're going to give our best advice based on our statistical expertise, and at the end of the day, as I say, once this decision is made, it will be the first time in Canada that we will have had a module of five questions with very high quality data for very low levels of geography, and that's not enough. I think we're going to have to go even beyond that, and Statistics Canada is more than prepared to continue to work to do post-censal surveys, to go to administrative data, because as I keep repeating, you do the census in May 2021 and the information is out of date essentially the day after you collect it, but it serves as a good benchmark for us to continue that process. So we need—
Liberal
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Yes. I'm sorry to cut you off, but time is limited and I want to maximize as much as I possibly can.
So I understand from your answer, then, that there could be a possibility that, this time around, your suggestion or your recommendation would be to be able to include those questions now that we've never included before, to be able to address this pressing problem. Is my understanding correct?
You're saying that you could do more, but for the time you seem to be on page and saying perhaps, yes, you are going toward including these other two subsections of section 23 that we have not in the past, in the short form.
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
I'll just repeat what I have said, which is that we would not have gone to all those extents and tested and subjected 135,000 households if there were no intent to include that as a recommendation.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Okay. I'm a rookie on this committee. I'm newly elected, by profession a lawyer. I've just been practising 29 years, and I know that when I'm in a court of law, experts are called to give their opinions. They are not bound by any confidentiality. They're not bound by any secrecy. Courts want to hear from the experts.
So you're the expert here today. In your opinion, both the federal government and Stats Canada have an obligation to put in place positive measures to be able to help the minority communities. Would you not agree that incorporating these other two subsections of section 23 would be a positive step and a positive move for all the minorities concerned across the land?
As an expert, what would be your answer?
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
First of all, we do get called in front of courts—
Liberal
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
—to defend our methodology. We would be more than happy to do that on this aspect if called upon.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you. We have to move on to the second round.
Mr. d'Entremont, you have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Chris d'Entremont Conservative West Nova, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will share my speaking time with Mr. Godin.
I want to take as an example a small community of 3,000 people. Let's say there are 100 people in there who are ayants droit. What are the possibilities of StatCan missing those 100 people in the methodology it has today? Will you capture those small numbers that we're really trying to tease out of it so that we can build a school or a community centre, or do those kinds of things?