Industry committee  Right, but in general the chief statistician would now have the authority. In the current system, all business surveys are mandatory. On the household side, the census is mandatory, and the labour force survey is the only other mandatory household survey at this point. If the c

Industry committee  In my recollection, there were some court cases in the early 1980s of people refusing to fill out the census—the long-form portion—because it was a sample. Under the old act, there was potential for that to be contentious. Under the proposed amendments, that would no longer be th

Industry committee  Under the existing act, both the census of population and the census of agriculture are mandatory. There is a long-established tradition of the long form being part of the census, so therefore it's mandatory. Under Bill C-36 we actually assign to the chief statistician the abilit

Official Languages committee  I'm not sure what you're asking me exactly. Is it whether the department is telling me what I should be aware of?

Official Languages committee  No. I have not had any instructions, but in the course of the past few weeks and months we've been having discussions with Statistics Canada about this issue.

Official Languages committee  There are many data priorities, many needs to collect statistical information on a wide range of subjects. Under the legislation that is now in place, the Statistics Act, which is in the process of being amended through Bill C-35, the issue is related to what information is colle

Official Languages committee  In the weeks and months ahead, as part of the process for the development of the questions for the 2021 census, we will have discussions with StatsCan, the department, and officials from the minister's office and come to a recommendation on what to do.

Official Languages committee  It's recently, in the past couple of months, as the committee has had its discussions and there have been newspaper and media articles. The department is certainly aware of it, as StatsCan officials are.

Official Languages committee  There are a couple of things. As Ms. Graziadei said, one is that the process of determining the questions that will go into the census, the consultation process, will be under way shortly. In general, on how to collect information in the best way, the most scientifically sound wa

Official Languages committee  Thank you for your question. The recommendations on the questions for the census content rely most importantly on the work that Statistics Canada does to consult with Canadians. They make a recommendation to the minister, who then makes a recommendation to the Governor in Counci

Official Languages committee  Do you mean between Statistics Canada and the minister?

Official Languages committee  There are none, in my experience.

Official Languages committee  That's correct.