Mr. Speaker, during a recent appearance before the Standing Committee on Industry, the chief statistician, Ivan Fellegi, said that, when a certain number of people say they are of an ethnic origin not on the agency's list, that ethnic origin is then added.
But by caving in to the “Call me Canadian” political lobby and listing Canadian as an ethnic origin, Statistics Canada has sabotaged the usefulness of the ethnic origin question and wasted taxpayers' money.
Many scientists, including the Association des démographes du Québec, have asked the organization to go back to the 1991 census proposal.
Statistics Canada must put this right. Its reputation as a scientific agency hangs in the balance. Otherwise, by turning the census into a political operation, this federal agency will lose its credibility.