Public Accounts committee  I think we are talking about two different things. For the National Household Survey, which did cost some $650 million, we went systematically to visit all of the reserves in Canada that allowed us to do so, because not all of them do. In some cases there were forest fires or flooding that prevented us from going onto the reserves.

Public Accounts committee  We either use the same wording or we have tested to ensure that we're getting comparable results with the different wording. Otherwise, we're changing a question in a way that we intend to get a different result because we were modernizing it in some respect or adding a dimension to it.

Public Accounts committee  I can't deal with it briefly, so I'll....

Public Accounts committee  Essentially, I can't answer the question in terms of the policy on the employment of temporary foreign workers. I can tell you that we used to have a survey of job vacancies many years ago. It was cut by the government at one point—this was in the 1970s—because it was felt that it was not necessary for the purposes of the government.

Public Accounts committee  Statistics Canada is very actively engaged internationally in defining all those standards, and defining them in ways that ensure the resulting statistical programs respond to the needs of Canadians. The industrial classification we use in the survey of employment, payrolls, and hours, for example, is one that's negotiated between us, the Americans, and the Mexicans, to ensure it is well adapted to the structure of Canadian industry and therefore responsive to the needs of the data users.

Public Accounts committee  An agreement is already in place with Employment and Social Development Canada to begin surveys on that in the near future.

Public Accounts committee  I apologize, but I missed the last part of your question.

Public Accounts committee  That is your conclusion. I cannot confirm or deny what you are saying. Since I have no responsibility at all for the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, I cannot take a position on that.

Public Accounts committee  According to what I understand, the survey we are developing at this time will allow us to determine specifically, by economic region and by occupation, what positions are available and what the related salaries are. As to the frequency of that exercise, I don't remember if it will be monthly or quarterly, but it will be regular.

Public Accounts committee  If I understand correctly, the incident you are mentioning concerns the inaccurate data we published last July and August. This was entirely Statistics Canada's fault. It was in no way linked to a budget cut. In fact, the budget for that program had not been reduced. This was entirely our fault.

Public Accounts committee  We take that into account. From the very inception of the Labour Force Survey in the 1940s, reserves were not included in that study, which generates figures on employment, mainly because of the cost. In light of the sample we have currently, we could not publish data on reserves.

Public Accounts committee  That's true.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. We analyzed the returns from the 2006 census to identify areas and groups that were at risk of being under-counted. We focused our efforts in those areas where we had that concern.

Public Accounts committee  It was a much smaller number, but yes, there were some in 2006. In every census there are some census subdivisions for which we feel the quality is insufficient to publish the data.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.