International Co-operation  Mr. Speaker, Canadians are quite concerned to see the Prime Minister return to the world stage. This week, he has the nerve to attend the Sommet de la Francophonie, where he will face the Franco-African countries he has abandoned in terms of international aid. In February 2009, he dropped eight African countries from his priority assistance list, including the following Franco-African countries: Benin, Cameroon, Rwanda, Burkina Faso and Niger.

International Co-operation  Mr. Speaker, the Francophonie is a major international summit, with thousands of delegates, 600 journalists, 53 member nations, including observers, and over 70 heads of state expected to attend, yet the Swiss government is managing to hold this summit by spending a modest $31 million in security costs.

Infrastructure  Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are being stubborn and irresponsible with the March 31 deadline. This policy is causing major problems. It is artificially inflating the cost of many projects, and is jeopardizing a ton of others, for example, 2-22, the flagship building of Montreal's Quartier des spectacles.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I do not.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I have watched the Minister of Industry twist himself into a pretzel trying to justify the ill-advised decision of the government. I think he is an intelligent man who is not really comfortable with what he is saying, but he is saying it because he has to toe the party line.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member from Lévis—Bellechasse. I hardly know where to begin. It makes me laugh to hear the Conservative government keep talking about prison sentences. Was my Conservative Party colleague asleep under a rock all summer long? Did he not hear the opposition parties say that they were ready to get rid of prison sentences?

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, the short answer is no. As far as I can make out, the decision to change it was made by the Prime Minister's Office. The government asked Statistics Canada how to make it work so that it looked okay. Statistics Canada, based on documents that we have seen, essentially said that it was a bad idea.

Business of Supply  moved: That the House calls on the Government of Canada to reinstate immediately the long-form census; and given that no person has ever been imprisoned for not completing the census, the House further calls on the government to introduce legislative amendments to the Statistics Act to remove completely the provision of imprisonment from Section 31 of the Act in relation to the Long-form Census, the Census of Population and the Census of Agriculture.

Census  Mr. Speaker, Canadians do not understand why this government is attacking the census. Why jeopardize a valuable tool that allows us to make informed decisions? By partially backtracking when faced with the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, the government is admitting it was wrong.

Census  Mr. Speaker, did I hear the Minister of Industry say that he had been honest? The government should not fight the consensus on this. The census is important for bilingualism, but it is also crucial for the economy. If the Conservatives go forward, our central bank will have poor data on which to base its policies.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I thank the Bloc member for his comments. Yes, during the summer, we heard all kinds of misinformation about the census, including a comment from a member of the Conservative Party, the member for Beauce, who claimed that he had received 1,000 complaints a day when he was Industry minister and minister responsible for Statistics Canada.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I remind the hon. member that there was a pilot project, adopted by our neighbours to the south in 2003, to go toward a voluntary form of data gathering. We heard very clearly during the testimony over the summer that they gave that up. Why did they give it up? Because they could not, for the very reasons I have spoken of today, assure themselves that they would get valuable data.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, there is no question about the overwhelming amount of outcry and letters to the Prime Minister and to the government. If one puts that alongside those who support the government on its decision, it is really comparing a very giant list compared to something that is infinitesimal.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, what happens for the third of Canadians who do not fill it out? They are not white, middle-class Canadians. We know this from scientific evidence. We know that those people who are less likely to fill out the questionnaire are the disadvantaged. We are talking about the linguistic minorities, first nations, poor people, ethnic minorities, and they are precisely the people we want to target with government policy, but unfortunately, they will not be represented.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my hon. colleague from the NDP for raising this issue today. He knows that we will be debating this issue next Tuesday during an opposition day of the Liberal Party, but today's debate gives us some additional time to get into the matter and certainly there is a great deal to cover.