Industry committee  I do not think anyone will benefit. Some people who are more sensitive may feel more comfortable, but as I said earlier, what the government is asking is not unreasonable: filling out a few pages, which takes between 10 and 15 minutes to do but which goes a long way towards helpi

Industry committee  Research will certainly be affected. We will be left without tools. Let's consider a hypothetical situation. If we are told that 67% of Montreal's population speaks English, we will not know whether that information is accurate. In reality, the figure is perhaps 61% or perhaps 7

Industry committee  The way I see it, the main problem with the voluntary form has to do with methodology. When it comes to everything else, the questions can always be revised, as some questions may indeed appear to be a bit silly or pointless. But it is important to keep in mind that some of the q

Industry committee  The act of asking the same questions twice may seem silly. I agree with you that certain questions should not be included in the census because that information can be obtained in other ways, for example, from the income tax return. However, I do not think that is the issue her

Industry committee  We could examine the questions and filter them out.

Industry committee  You are indeed right. We should not do that.

Industry committee  No, but...

Industry committee  If you'll allow me to answer, I'd say that the prison sentence could be re-examined. I agree with you on that point, but as for the citizens' duty to fill out a census form, I don't really think that it's asking too much. In some provinces or countries, they start each morning wi

Industry committee  I said that imprisonment struck me as an extreme measure, but perhaps that is a separate issue. That being said, I don't think that...

Industry committee  Allow me to finish my answer. We should keep in mind that answering census questions is not a task that is very difficult or unreasonable. It should be seen as a citizens' duty rather than as a possible source of punishment.

Industry committee  Precisely. I will say it again. At first, we could say that, given the concerns expressed by some Canadians, we will not make all forms mandatory. That may seem easy. We do not abolish the forms completely, but we make the responses voluntary. That may seem like a rather minor ch

Industry committee  I would first like to mention that I am a geographer and urban planner in addition to being a professor at the Université du Québec in Chicoutimi. The census data are very useful for the applied research we do on the environment, transportation, residential construction, urban pl

Industry committee  Absolutely. My colleague explained it very well a few minutes ago. When you ask people to fill out the form voluntarily, even if it seems to be completely normal and positive, it actually distorts the data in the census sampling process. In other words, the people who will answer