moved for leave to introduce Bill C-346, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (Chief Statistician and mandatory long-form census).
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to have the member for Burnaby—New Westminster second this very important bill.
The bill would restore the long form census and also would make sure that politics was not involved in the hiring of the chief statistician. All members would be involved in selecting the chief statistician. The bill would give direct questioning to the chief statistician himself.
What is really important to note is Canada has thrown away its long form census. That undermines many surveys that are conducted because it is used in that process. This hurts the economy and the way we actually make decisions about spending. It is my pleasure to table this bill that would fix that problem.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)