Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned the following in his speech. It is a huge problem that the Conservatives decided to eliminate the mandatory long form census in 2010. In an article published last week, scientists made a heartfelt plea, saying that they no longer have data and that the small amount of data they do have are biased and do not reflect reality. They can no longer conduct research.
Our former chief statistician even made a joke, saying, “Guess what? Canada managed to eliminate poverty. How did it do that? By simply eliminating the mandatory census.”
The Conservatives are trying to eliminate the problem by preventing scientists from accessing data. Thus, the Conservatives will not have to be accountable to the public.
Could my colleague speak to this very serious problem?