Industry committee  —and then you're able to actually determine trends over time.

Industry committee  Absolutely; it's not a specific question within the study itself.

Industry committee  Researchers at the Université de Montréal and McGill University use RAMQ data to establish links with census data for planning in terms of populations. So it is very important. The impact is very real. And I find it very troubling that the real impact of cancelling the census has

Industry committee  Mr. Drummond, that would presume that we eventually do know the weights and can figure it out, and it's unbiased in the long term, right? So that would be the best-case scenario.

Industry committee  According to Statistics Canada, increasing the number of voluntary survey forms distributed will cost $30 million. So we are talking direct costs. The indirect costs are huge because Statistics Canada provides a service to all Canadians, a service used by partner agencies across

Industry committee  Every Canadian contributes to it. First of all, we give our information. And that information is confidential. We have never violated privacy. Because of that, there is a huge impact on all the other organizations, at every level. The costs of replacing the survey are huge, e

Industry committee  What they typically do is they link questions on income, education, sex—which are part of the short form, obviously—and the counts. So with anything that determines socio-economic status, they effectively link that to any other database. So you don't ask about the actual condit

Industry committee  I am a physician, but I do not work in the public sector. So I am more familiar with the issues in the private sector. However, my journal publishes a lot of articles on public health in Canada. Canadian researchers use that data to write for our publication. The impact on Canad

Industry committee  First of all, essential data would be lost that is used to plan and deliver public health programs and health services in every region in Canada. My colleagues and I both feel it would have a very real and direct impact. Second of all, it would have a negative impact on research

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Garneau. Like my colleagues, I agree that the census is the ideal tool. A voluntary survey can give rise to very specific biases. The big problem, as Mr. Drummond mentioned, is that even though we can still obtain something that works, we are not sure. The census