The data that we had at the time of the Auditor General's review simply gave the job vacancy numbers at the national and to some extent provincial level, and gave no detail by occupation, and certainly not for smaller geographies and was therefore really not meeting the need that was being expressed.
But in order to be able to collect and publish data for detailed occupations for small, local areas you need a very large survey.
The staff of the Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada, Minister Kenney, approached us to say that they would like to fill this information need and could we design a survey and tell them what it might cost to be able to do that.
We have designed a survey that will allow us to publish data by occupation, with wages, at a fairly detailed geographical level. That survey should largely meet the kinds of needs that have been expressed in terms of information. It represents, as Minister Kenney indicated in a public statement, an investment of about $14 million, which is why Statistics Canada could never have undertaken it on its own.