Industry committee  I agree strongly with Professor Thomas, that trying to legislate the scope is a mistake. On the other hand, I'm sensitive to the concerns that were raised in the earlier committee hearings that the government might instruct that the census be extremely brief and that everything else be done by surveys.

Industry committee  Centrally. My first point is that they would now be much more public in owning the responsibility. I'm not sure about the legislative impact, not being a lawyer. I would say it would be similar in scope, but tying the scope is a mistake, and I will use the example of the agricultural survey.

Industry committee  On the mandatory side, I believe with the census that we must have our benchmark data mandatory for sound methodological reasons and because we base all of our voluntary surveys on benchmarks back—

Industry committee  First, in many cases, the collection itself, as I understand it, will continue to be done by Statistics Canada, so we're talking about the data processing operations. I want to demur on the question because I really do not have the technical expertise, nor does the council view itself as having the kind of expertise to make a sophisticated judgment.

Industry committee  Furthermore, and to go back to something Mr. Sheehan talked about, the voluntary nature of the NHS meant that for small areas and specialized subpopulations, no data were released, because they didn't have the confidence they required.

Industry committee  First, I'd like to distinguish between the census, for which there is a very long history.... Frankly, statistical agencies are very conservative organizations. Given the choice between changing a question over time to reflect changing circumstances and asking the same question twice so you have the same comparability over time, they always go for the comparability, or almost always.

Industry committee  I have two quick notes. First, it is very difficult to draw a very firm line. To use the example of response burden in the technical sense, with 15 different operations a minister might say to a chief statistician, that's a huge burden. That is also a core methodological issue about how you collect the data, and a good example of where those intermesh.

Industry committee  It's not the Statistics Council's business to endorse, or not, the UN Charter. We've been well aware of it, and we think it is a very terrific series of guidelines. In our discussions, we have always said that whatever Canada does should be consistent with those guidelines. Frankly, on the issue of legislative drafting, I can't opine as to why they did or did not include it.

Industry committee  I do not believe you can compel any of that by legislative fiat. You have to reinforce the climate that said this is a trusted system and agency that we will entrust with our data.

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  I'll go to the front. You've raised an enormous issue, and I tried to emphasize in my testimony earlier that what matters is the Canadian statistical system. The census is critical because it's the foundation and the benchmark against which we track everything else. The reason that the changes, the independence, and the trust are so important, is that it's not just a question of whether we should do a single survey, change a question in the census, but also, where do we get administrative records?

Industry committee  The National Statistics Council has not involved itself in what we would view as operational issues within the agency. If we see problems on things like delivery or process, we'll speak up. Frankly, as I said in my remarks, we don't have the expertise to make a sophisticated judgment about the appropriate case.

Industry committee  First, I think the optimal composition of the proposed group flows very much from what it is you want it to do. I was pleased to hear what Munir Sheikh said, that we were a consultative group and tried very hard, as Paul has said, to leave our individual occupational hats at the door and to reflect regional topic areas in the whole country.

Industry committee  Yes. There were several periods. As soon as the government announced that it intended to increase the independence of Statistics Canada, the chief statistician asked us to begin to give him advice that he could convey to the minister about our thoughts. There was a working group formed.

Industry committee  In fact, before the details of the bill were out, we had already submitted, and we see some of the provisions of the bill reflect advice we gave. Our expertise is not in legislative drafting, as you can appreciate, so we focused on the principles and objectives, and we see many of them reflected in the bill and the amendments.