Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in today's debate on Bill C-625, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (removal of imprisonment). I would like to say right away that, as the official opposition, the NDP will be supporting the bill at second reading.
What does this bill mean? The title summarizes its intention quite well, I must admit. The bill officially removes the possibility of incarcerating someone who fails to comply with a mandatory survey. That is already in the provisions of the Statistics Act. I would also add, for the benefit of those watching us at home and following this debate closely, that no one has ever been imprisoned under the Statistics Act. That has never happened in Canada. This legislation absolutely must be fixed. I want to mention one other thing that is really important: the bill does nothing to address the serious difficulties currently facing Statistics Canada, difficulties that, in fact, it has been facing since this Conservative government took power. I will talk about that in greater detail throughout my speech.
As the official opposition, our position is quite clear and we have expressed it on a number of occasions. Ever since cuts have been made to Statistics Canada, we in the NDP have been speaking out against them. We do not think that is the right thing to do and for several reasons. With this bill, the Conservatives are once again trying to use smoke and mirrors to make us forget that they are waging an ideological and political war—and I am choosing my words carefully—against Statistics Canada. Instead of directly tackling the real problems and putting an end to the years of poor management of Statistics Canada, including for instance, the disastrous decision to eliminate the long form census, honestly, they are wasting their time creating problems where there are none.
The Conservatives' cuts have left Statistics Canada clearly underfunded and unable to produce data that is in keeping with international standards. When we had the long form census, we could be relatively proud as a country to have very good statistics on various subjects that are very important to Canadians and all community organizations across the country, from coast to coast to coast. The Conservatives should have supported the NDP strategy to put Statistics Canada back on strong footing instead of dismantling it, eliminate jail time, and reinstate a long form census. It is no secret that we are completely in favour of eliminating the section of the legislation that could put someone in jail. I also think that reinstating the long form census would have been more useful than cutting Statistics Canada's budget.
Let me provide some context. The modern census was created in 1971 and was conducted roughly every five years until 2006. In June 2010, the Government of Canada announced it was getting rid of the mandatory long form census and replacing it with the national household survey. This is an abridged version of the long form census we used to have, and participation is voluntary. That is one of the problems we have with the Conservative government's cuts and choices.
Replacing the mandatory long form census with a voluntary survey leads to many serious problems that will not be resolved in any way whatsoever by the bill introduced by my colleague across the way.
For many Canadian communities, the quality of the data was so poor that Statistics Canada simply refused to publish it. In order to try to obtain better data, and following consultations I had with various organizations in the Laval region, I moved a motion to that effect. I will explain.
As an MP, I have been fortunate to meet with people from such organizations as Afeas, an advocacy group for women's rights that is present in several Quebec ridings. These women want their rights to be respected and absolutely want equality for men and women. They are serious feminists who have accomplished much in the past few decades, and I thank them for it. I would also like to thank them for their confidence, because before I was elected one of my predecessors—not in the riding I represent, but the member for Laval—had introduced a bill to establish Invisible Work Day.
Invisible work is all the work done by a caregiver, mother or father in the home. It is unpaid work that has a very significant social and economic impact in our communities.
The entire House voted in favour of the bill to recognize Invisible Work Day, which is celebrated at the beginning of April. I am proud to contribute to and participate in these celebrations every year because I think it is very important. I was raised by a very courageous woman, my mother, who did invisible work and who stayed at home to raise me and my brother when we were young. Furthermore, she showed twice as much courage when she went back to work in her fifties. It is absolutely necessary that we acknowledge the invisible work done by people to meet the needs of children or parents in need.
Afeas and I decided to take this a little further together. The Statistics Canada questionnaire has never recorded invisible work, which we know has huge social and economic implications for the country. We do not know exactly what those implications are. That is why I moved a motion to recognize invisible work and set a few guidelines, such as an exact definition of invisible work. I am also asking the government to reverse its decision to eliminate the long form census and even add a section about invisible work. That would have given us reliable statistics that would probably have helped communities and organizations affected by this. In addition, I think it could have helped the government make more informed decisions about the budget, such as how to play with the budget, how to support people who do invisible work and how to properly represent these communities and these people during a budget period.
My motion is still on the table. If the Conservatives think that it is an excellent idea, then I suggest that they move it in the House or examine it more closely. The details of the proposed motion can be found on the Parliament of Canada website. If the Canadians who are watching at home today are interested in learning more about invisible work in general or about the motion that I proposed to recognize that work, I invite them to visit the Parliament of Canada website or my website for more information. However, the Parliament of Canada website will provide them with all of the information that they need and they can find out exactly what the legislation provides for and what this motion involves.
As the official opposition, the NDP believes that we must reinstate the long form census to provide social scientists, governments and businesses with the data that they need and have been calling for since the budget cuts were made to Statistics Canada. Once again, the Conservatives are trying to fool us into thinking that they are managing Statistics Canada effectively, but the agency has had nothing but problems since the Conservatives took office.
In closing, I would like to mention that this affects many minority groups. As I said before, there are women, like the members of Afeas, but there are also members of first nations who have been negatively affected by the elimination of the long form census.
With that, I would like to mention once more that I will support my colleague's bill but that it does not directly address the problem of the budget cuts at Statistics Canada.