Industry committee  Obviously, we work very closely with the bank, with our colleagues in ISED, and with a number of others—Global Affairs, and so on—to understand where those data gaps are. I think we have a very robust relationship with those entities to identify where, in our context in Canada, we think we can have more information.

Industry committee  Indeed they are.

Industry committee  I think there are a number of issues that essentially lead to where the government's position is and some of the changes in the legislation. You rightly pointed out that one of the four key elements there is to ensure that the independence of Statistics Canada, and obviously the head of the agency, remains and is not, as with other deputy ministers, subject to serving at pleasure.

Industry committee  Mr. Smith left nothing for me specifically, in terms of either advice or documents. You have what I have in terms of his public commentary.

Industry committee  I left Statistics Canada before Mr. Munir Sheikh resigned.

Industry committee  I left in March of 2010. If I have my dates right, I think Munir Sheikh left in June of the same year, so I left a few months before he did.

Industry committee  I had an opportunity at Natural Resources Canada.

Industry committee  First of all, I can't comment on those organizations. I have no idea what their specific context is. I can tell you that what we're talking about isn't a change to a different system or a different kind of centre; we are talking about increasing the overall capacity while maintaining the current robust architecture for security and confidentiality.

Industry committee  You have to break that down. The 98% is a global response rate for all of Canada for both the short form and the long form. There's a differential between the long form and the short form in this census, and it is marginal—

Industry committee  The second thing is, of course, that the response rate varies by geography. I wouldn't know off the top of my head what the response rate was for Windsor. For many communities, the response rate may be 100% and in other cases it may be a bit lower, but overall the response rate was 98%.

Industry committee  Yes. The response rate is calculated based on the total number of questionnaires that are distributed to occupied dwellings, and from that frame, the number of forms that are received.

Industry committee  I repeat, the response rate that is being quoted by Statistics Canada as 98% is essentially the questionnaires we got back within the universe of the questionnaires we sent out. There are differences, as I said, between the long form and the short form and within the different geographies.

Industry committee  I would suspect not. I have no evidence to suggest that they did.

Industry committee  I started on September 19—

Industry committee  —and I can only tell you that since that point, there have been no issues that have escalated to my level, or any issues that have prevented us from providing timely and detailed access to information—