Mr. Speaker, one of the documents the FCFA presented to the court is an affidavit signed by Ms. Bender, assistant chief statistician at Statistics Canada, who clearly states that the results obtained from a survey like the one proposed by the government would be less reliable than the results obtained from the mandatory long form, especially for small groups, including minority francophone communities and certain minority anglophone communities.
Thus, the impact is more serious for the communities my colleague is talking about, which is why the FCFA felt it had to go before the courts to exercise its constitutional and legal rights as recognized by the House, or by both Houses and the Parliament of Canada.