Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague from across the way. I enjoy his interjections in the House and I anticipate there will be a good number of them in the coming months.
Having said that, the member is right that the Harper government did not get rid of the long-form census, but he needs to recognize that the Conservative government did make it non-mandatory. The criticism of the Harper government back then was very extensive, from virtually every sector and every stakeholder that understood the importance of the census being mandatory.
If the member across the way were to reflect on it, I am sure he would not suggest that it should be non-mandatory. By making it mandatory, we will have better information.
As I tried to illustrate in the limited amount of time I had, that information is very critical for all levels of government, not to mention the non-profits, the private sector, and many other stakeholders that are in need of the type of information we know Statistics Canada can provide, as long it is afforded the right tools, and one of those tools is a mandatory long-form census.