Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you all very much for being here this morning. We've certainly heard opinions from a varied group of presenters, and we welcome you.
My first question is for Mr. Stone. In your opening statement you referred to your work in preparing three technical papers published in The 1996 Census: Unpaid Work Data Evaluation Study, which you co-authored with a colleague—I think it was Sandra Swain. My understanding is that the stated purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the census data on unpaid work is valid data and how the census data compares with the GSS time diary data on unpaid work of various kinds.
I hope you'll correct me if I'm wrong, and I'm not going to go into reading it all, but it appears that the study reached two conclusions of interest to the committee. You said:
With its large sample size, census estimates will be more reliable than the GSS in terms of sampling variability for dozens of significant sub-populations.
You went on to say, further on, that:
...with regard to child-caring work, it is almost totally misleading to suggest that the GSS time-diary estimates of time spent doing child caring as a primary activity are comparable (let alone superior) to the census-type, stylized question....
You go on, but I don't want to take the time to read it all.
Is it your professional opinion that these findings are still valid; that you're not aware of any studies that would show that those findings, albeit 15 years ago, are incorrect?