Industry committee  In terms of the current census and even the one before, nothing has been outsourced. All of the work is being done by Statistics Canada. There are no private sector companies involved, American or Canadian, in the actual processing of the data. It's being done by Statistics Canada.

Industry committee  There was no funding in the most recent budget for restoration of any of those programs, the ones that you are referring to, things that we've eliminated in that period. There are a handful of them, a very small number, such as the residential care facilities survey, where Statistics Canada, working with other partners or on its own, was able to put the survey back in place.

Industry committee  Within Statistics Canada's own resources the potential is very limited. As I mentioned in my remarks, we actively look for efficiencies, and when we can find them, we reinvest in the program. In some cases that reinvestment might be for resurrection of one of those surveys. In other cases it might be in something that's considered to be an even higher priority.

Industry committee  The short-form census goes to 100% of the population. It has about 10 questions on it. Most of them are basic demographics such as age, sex, and relationships between people, whether they are married or not. There are also language questions about official languages, mother tongue, and so on.

Industry committee  We don't have a specific program intended to do that, but we do produce a range of data that can be used for those purposes. There are specific projects that we could potentially carry on with NSERC to carry out a more in-depth evaluation.

Industry committee  The census of agriculture started with large farms in December 2015. We're working on the collection of the census from that point through to September. A lot of the contact with the farms will occur during the May-June period largely because in order to save money we're piggybacking on the operations of the census of population to make the whole operation more efficient.

Industry committee  If you look at the statistical legislation of most developed countries, for example, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, and other countries with the Westminster system, but also Europe, in law certain specific powers are assigned to the chief statistician or director general of the national statistical office, powers over things that involve decisions about statistical methods, analysis, dissemination.

Industry committee  Mr. Chair, I would first like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about Statistics Canada's priorities and challenges. Statistics Canada is well known for regular publication every year of a wide range of high-quality economic, social, and environmental data, from gross domestic product to crime rates, from employment to inflation, from post-secondary graduations to field-crop production.

Industry committee  In principle, as I recall the instructions, it is supposed to be the desire of the person who is named on the form but it obviously poses problems for children. Clearly parents have opted to answer on behalf of the child in some cases, so the result, the effect, has been probably a mixture of people who have chosen not to answer for their children and others who have.

Industry committee  The way it would be applied by Statistics Canada and the way we understand it was expected to be applied was that if we have a response indicating, yes, you can share this, we will share it.

Industry committee  It's important to put it in context. It's true that the response rate has dropped, going from 93.5% to 69%. And the problem that gives rise to is this. If we do nothing and keep the sample size as is, we will lose statistical reliability. But we have offset that effect. Instead of having a sample size of one in five households, we established a sample size of one in three households.

Industry committee  We had all the resources necessary, but we can only do so much. There's no way to offset the bias 100%. When we identified the problem, we made information to that effect available. We were transparent with Canadians, telling them where exactly we had found problems. Furthermore, because of the methods used to collect the data, we observed greater volatility in the data on small regions with very small populations.

Industry committee  We couldn't provide Canadians with data that was, in our view, inappropriate and quite possibly misleading if used as the basis for decision-making. Nevertheless, the quality and reliability of the national household survey data are very good, overall. Although we did experience some loss and there were consequences, it's important not to blow them out of proportion, either.

Industry committee  The occasions on which the opportunity presents itself have been...so I can't really say there's a track record. But I take your point. It wouldn't be the norm, and perhaps I shouldn't have indicated our support.

Industry committee  I think it's an anachronism. It's been embedded in the act from the 19th century and it's simply been carried forward. In some ways it's surprising that it was carried forward in the 1970 revision to the Statistics Act. That was the moment when I would have thought that the world had evolved and people would no longer think that jail was an appropriate penalty.