Official Languages committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I want to thank the committee for giving Statistics Canada this opportunity to present the facts concerning an error detected in the 2016 population census language data that it released on August 2. I believe you have received copies of the present

Official Languages committee  The answer I can give is that I absolutely agree with you. Statistics Canada's credibility is always at stake when we use data. We always want to ensure that users can count on valid information. We are still reviewing all the processes associated with what happened in this inst

Official Languages committee  In this case, it was in fact a reversal error in a computer system.

Official Languages committee  The system was supposed to read the French version of the questionnaire and interpret it as the French version. During the conversion, if the first possible answer, “French”, had been checked, the system should have interpreted that answer as “French”. However, it was the English

Official Languages committee  I know what happened, but I still do not know how the error escaped us. When we create a system, it is systematically designed and individually tested. We test the outputs of that system. We verify where in fact the information subsequently goes, which system takes over, and so

Official Languages committee  It was not the system that failed to detect the error. It was the people who tested the system who failed to see it was incorrectly reading the questionnaire.

Official Languages committee  Where a person who completed the French version of the questionnaire indicated English as the spoken language, the system mistakenly read that as though the person had indicated French as the spoken language. The error could affect certain cases in that way.

Official Languages committee  It is 61,000.

Official Languages committee  The problem was in fact unrelated to the questions. The problem was in the underlying mechanics of those questions and concerned the data production process as a whole. The problem occurred during an auxiliary data collection process when we converted certain responses in order t

Official Languages committee  Not in this case. These are the only questions for which the answers do not appear in the same order in the English and French versions.

Official Languages committee  Absolutely.

Official Languages committee  No. Here is the situation. The response database that we receive reflects all the changes we have had to make to ensure that incomplete responses are coded so that we have a complete database. We are provided with this database, which contains the answers that Canadians have pro

Official Languages committee  Correct.

Official Languages committee  Those closed meetings are in fact not held for the purpose of validating information. They are meetings where certain individuals can obtain the information before others. They are held on the day the data are released, and certain individuals have access to the findings.

Official Languages committee  In normal circumstances, checks are made at every stage, whether it be the computer systems, the findings, or the production. There are a host of steps, and we usually verify them systematically.