Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my able colleague, the hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier.
I never thought I would have to give a speech like this or have a discussion like this in the House of Commons. Obviously, in the quiet days of summer, just after Parliament ended, the Minister of Industry decided, in his infinite wisdom, to simply change what had worked for the country and was our jewel in the crown as far as the acquisition and aggregation of information goes. In one simple statement, the long form census that was so necessary to the fundamental understanding of who we are was gone, or at least it was proposed that it be eliminated.
In its place, we heard, in a rather pathetic excuse from the Conservative government, would be a voluntary form.
What we knew at the time was that the government actually had accurate, reliable, precise, honest information to suggest that what it was going to propose as an alternative was, in fact, a very poor cousin to the information it had.
I will go very quickly through this, because in the 10 minutes I have I want to come to the point of what we are really discussing here: the dumbing down of Canada by the Conservative government. What it does not want to do is provide information to Canadians and allow Canada to have a better understanding of itself.
I wish that some of the government members would understand that there is some wisdom in Yogi Berra's saying that if you do not know where you are going, chances are that you are going to wind up somewhere else.
The Conservative government, in what I consider an act of statistical vandalism, has thrown Canada into uncertainty so that people around this country will understand less about who we are. I am not talking about people who happen to support particular programs or who happen to have a political agenda to grind. I am talking about people who come from all walks of life. Mr. Speaker, you know them. They are the police associations in my riding.