Mr. Speaker, as I listened to my hon. colleague, I wondered if he was at a different meeting this afternoon than I was because he portrayed a different picture of what I remember hearing from the witnesses who were before the committee today.
We had a good committee hearing today. We heard from three statistical experts who shared with us the work that is ongoing right now as Statistics Canada undertakes this national household survey. By all reports today, that work seems to be going well. Some good progress is being made in the north where the process has begun. We are hearing that there is a very strong response rate of 99% for the census and, I believe, 85% so far for the national household survey. That is a good start.
I would like to clarify some of the inaccuracies that we hear from time to time. There was some confusion in the committee today because one of the Liberal members did not realize that we still had a census. I think it is important to clarify that we do still have a census in this country. It is what most Canadians would equate to a census. It is the counting of all Canadians. It identifies their gender, where they live, their marital status and those types of important things for gathering information. As the member mentioned, that census is still mandatory.
In addition to the census, we have a national household survey that is not mandatory. We will no longer be threatening Canadians with fines and jail time because they do not want to tell the government, for example, what their religion is, or how many bedrooms they have in their house, or how much yard work they did last week. We think it is inappropriate and unacceptable to threaten Canadians with fines or jail time for not wanting to answer those questions.
It is fully understandable that we might have a situation where new Canadians may not want to tell the government their religion. Under the law previously, they would be threatened with up to a $500 fine or jail time. In fact, the Liberal member for St. Paul's has introduced a bill that would reinstate that threat of fines. Of course, if people do not pay their fine they are subject to jail time as well.
We think that is inappropriate and unacceptable in a modern democracy like Canada. We think that Canadians, when they receive their national household survey, will, for the most part, want to act responsibly and fill it out. I know I will. We heard from virtually everyone in the room today that if they get the national household survey they intend to fill it out and send it back.
We have some world-renowned experts in statistics who will be working on this and executing the new process to ensure we get the best information that we can possibly get. Perhaps the hon. member underestimates the skills that exist at Statistics Canada. We do not. We believe that we will get terrific, usable and useful information through this process, but we will do it without threatening Canadians.