Mr. Speaker, as for the matter of official languages, we will see how that ends because the matter will be determined in court very shortly, so I will leave that one alone for now.
I love this debate because the more the member for Burlington is trying to rationalize this decision, the more he digs the hole for his party, which is fine by me, because the people who attended the committee, the experts, were really quite clear.
The number of people who respond to this is not the issue. If we have a sampling, and all of the sampling must respond because it is mandatory, we therefore create a situation where we establish a benchmark and, from that benchmark, everything flowing can be tested, measured and validated. However, if it is voluntary, we create a built-in bias.
Those wealthy people will tend to seek anonymity and therefore will tend not to respond. Those who are more vulnerable, poorer or who do not understand the language as well will tend not to respond and we end up with data that has a built-in bias. Every expert on census confirmed that and the member just puts it aside by waving his hand. However, it does not work that way.
This is not a question. It is a comment--