I have a couple of comments. I agree that the purpose of the data is not just for research, although Statistics Canada does make money from people using their data for research.
In terms of the unpaid work question, in my own experience there certainly is academic research on it. It's also extremely useful for teaching and for general public education, that sort of lower level of research. At the high level of academic research, I'd have to do my own literature review to answer that question. But of course I was not asked about that when they decided to axe it.
It's quite annoying, in that there are so many other questions on the census. How many rooms are in your house? Has anybody checked on how much research is being done using that question? Is there a reason to ask that question?
In terms of the level of generality in the question, there are similar problems with the unpaid work questions being quite general. There are similar problems of recall, and so on, with regard to the paid work questions on the census. There are a lot of questions on that. People have to make their best guess on what kinds of work they do and how they spend their time, how long they commute to work. All of those things require judgment.
On the strengths of the unpaid work question, I and others have worked with it in conjunction with the more detailed general social survey breakdown of tasks, and they are quite complementary--