Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I am a bit confused. I was confused by the bill, and now I am a bit confused by the debates in front of us. I was confused by the bill, because the Liberals promised that they would bring back the mandatory long-form census, and that is not actually in the bill, and they promised in their platform that they would make Statistics Canada fully independent, and of course, that is not in the bill either. I do not think my confusion is just because it took me 48 hours to get back to Ottawa from a snowy Victoria in February. However, now I have listened to the debate on the bill, and one thing I can agree with the Conservatives on is the fact that the bill before us shows a paucity of proposals, on the Liberal side, for significant legislation.
I just heard the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa talking about the fact that Conservatives believe in the importance of data, but it was the Conservative government that eliminated the long-form census and interrupted the long chain of very important data that was important to researchers across the country. He say that he believes that privacy is really important and seems to be opposed to the fact that after 92 years, information from the census might be made public. He seems inordinately concerned that people are being asked about the amount of time it takes them to commute, which I think is important information for transportation. Finally, he is concerned about the protection of privacy through Shared Services, when it was the Conservative government that came up with the idea of Shared Services, which might result in the improper storage of data.
Maybe the member can explain to me how his position is consistent with what the Conservative government did before.