Thank you, Madam Chair.
To Statistics Canada: as you are aware, last March, here in the House of Commons, we adopted a motion that states the following:That this House highlight the importance of the so-called “invisible” unpaid work done by parents and caregivers on behalf of their children and aging family members by creating the “Invisible Work Day”…
On the one hand, we are adopting a motion, but on the other, we are abolishing the mandatory census and making it voluntary. A number of stakeholders, that you surely all know, mainly Aboriginal groups, universities and municipalities, recognize the importance of the data that was collected through that document. We risk losing data worth billions of dollars. Surely you know that, in both the provincial and federal economy, all the invisible unpaid work is worth billions of dollars. To my understanding, we are going to tell Canadians that we are now forgetting about this completely. This is what everyone is currently saying, and you're saying it too.
You seem to be saying that this data is now distributed through various surveys. But we are wondering about the relevance of what you said regarding the reliability of the data. How will we be able to establish a comparison with the information collected in the past? The information we get will be completely different because these elements will no longer be included in the questionnaire.
The next question is for Status of Women Canada. You do not question this, but you say that it is impossible for you to say at this point what the impact of losing this information would be on all the legislation that could possibly come into force and where this issue will have a major impact. That much is clear.