Industry committee  I haven't had a response from the minister, but I believe he's quite busy these days.

Industry committee  Well, on behalf of the Statistical Society of Canada we wrote first on July 9. We've written again, with the points that you have in front of you, and they include the reinstatement of the 2011 census. They do provide for, and I think they should provide for, a proper study of the impact of the voluntary survey.

Industry committee  The compromise, in the next round, would effectively do both. In the United Kingdom, where they have an 11-year lead time before the cancellation of the 2021 census, there will be all sorts of interest groups and other considerations in providing data to them. The compromise, I suggest, is to once again do the long form in its usual fashion--it's presumably prepared--and to simultaneously run a voluntary census with Statistics Canada and the National Statistics Council being responsible for providing a report indicating the degree of bias, where individuals or groups are undercounted, and how that bias is going to affect us in the future.

Industry committee  Yes, I'd just like to say that the Statistics Act, of course, was passed and is under the control of the Government of Canada, and I see no problem with changing the penalties there for non-compliance. I think the phrase “under threat of imprisonment” is very misplaced in this discussion, since it's never occurred, but “under threat of fine” makes perfect sense.

Industry committee  That's entirely up to them. Clearly if there's an undercount in a certain ethnic, social, or economic group and we don't know the degree of that undercount, there isn't a great deal they can do except perhaps run their own attempt at estimating those quantities.

Industry committee  That's part of the difficulty. We really don't know. It's a combination of factors, obviously. I have a daughter with three children under the age of 2, all in diapers. There are days when she can't brush her teeth. She has a neighbour with one daughter who is nine years old. Which of those two, given the voluntary survey, is more likely to be inclined to fill it out?

Industry committee  I don't want to speculate too much on who's undercounted. We do know that people with language difficulties and the poor will probably be undercounted. But the only way of knowing for sure is to do a properly designed study comparing the two.

Industry committee  No, I'm not going to say that. What I'm going to say, on behalf of statisticians in Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and every other place where a census is essentially mandatory, is that I would like the government to go forward with the compromise position that the National Statistics Council has outlined.

Industry committee  Well, I'm not referring to what should have been done.

Industry committee  No.

Industry committee  No, not without a carefully conducted pilot, which could be done provided the 2011 census went ahead in its standard, traditional mandatory form. A pilot could be conducted that would at least try to investigate the degree of bias associated with a voluntary survey. But we know that bias will be present.

Industry committee  We have about a thousand-and-some members, including a large number of academic statisticians from universities across the country, students, practising statisticians--a number from Statistics Canada, of course, and provincial statistical agencies--and statisticians who work in biostatistics and for private firms.

Industry committee  No, we were not consulted--but then, I would have been a bit surprised if we were. I think what we might have expected is that statisticians, in one or other of the various related agencies, would be fairly thoroughly consulted on this issue.

Industry committee  Well, in general, the presence of bias in voluntary surveys is well known and well documented. I think any statistics society anywhere would support that, including the American Statistical Association and the Royal Statistical Society. The real question is how much bias is present in each of the responses.

Industry committee  You have a copy, I think, of a statement we made. We're suggesting, among other things, that the mandatory long form be reinstated for 2011 and that Statistics Canada, with the advice of the National Statistics Council, be directed to undertake studies to show the impact of a voluntary survey over a mandatory one.