Mr. Speaker, I would say two things. With regard to the national household survey, researchers who have analyzed the data have discovered that it is of very poor quality. The income data revealed by the national household survey, because it was compared with the tax data, has been called worthless.
With respect to the planners, I would say urban planners are probably the most supportive group when it comes to the mandatory long-form census. There are five countries in Europe, as I mentioned, that do not have a census but have a different system. The problem is that everybody there has a universal personal identification number and the Privacy Commissioner is dead set against that. There are definite privacy risks. If we were to implement such a system, I would recommend that this country have a very serious discussion about the privacy implications because I am not sure Canadians would feel comfortable with that.
The safest thing to do in terms of privacy is to continue what Statistics Canada has been doing for decades, which is to have a mandatory long-form census done every five years. Stats Can works very closely with the Privacy Commissioner and is accountable to the public. As it does its work, as it asks questions and gets information from people, Stats Can is accountable to the public. There is a lot of information gathering going on across this country that is not accountable to the public.