Industry committee  I'll just add one point to that, and that is to emphasize that every single question on the census questionnaire is approved by the government; otherwise it wouldn't be on the census questionnaire. If there are certain questions that the government, very appropriately in its own

Industry committee  I don't think so.

Industry committee  No, that's fine.

Industry committee  I've served as the chair of the Conference of European Statisticians and also as the chair of the OECD statistics committee, and I've been president of the International Statistical Institute, so I have some awareness of what's happening in other countries. I can't say that it's

Industry committee  Well, there is no quick answer, because there's an endless number of steps, processes, and safeguards that we build into everything we do, including the last time, when we had the census in 2006. We ordered a security audit in which basically we mandated security firms who specia

Industry committee  None, and to the best of my knowledge, never anytime before, either. I sometimes jokingly say I've been chief statistician since Confederation. I haven't been chief statistician since Confederation, but I looked at the record, and to the best of my knowledge, there have not been

Industry committee  I'm happy to be first. Nobody knows whether it can be done. The point is that Great Britain just announced a decision a few days ago to look at its 2021 census and consider whether there are completely drastic alternatives to taking the census that could be applied in the Unite

Industry committee  Yes, they are voluntary, and they benefit from the terrific advantage of having a benchmark like the census against which they can be compared. So we know exactly, when we design the survey and when the data become available, how they compare on those variables that are included

Industry committee  If we didn't have the census to compare them against, I would never know the answer. That's what makes it pernicious.

Industry committee  I hope I didn't say that. I certainly didn't intend to say that. What I intended to say unambiguously--and I repeat, unambiguously--was that there are no grounds for such fears, because nobody's information has ever actually been released with an identification or with any way th

Industry committee  They need not be threatened about their information becoming public.

Industry committee  Well, they certainly wouldn't be jailed, because it has never happened in the history of the country. But could they be fined? Yes, absolutely.

Industry committee  If they make any offence against Canadian law, they will be prosecuted under Canadian law, like any other Canadian.

Industry committee  Or they may take offence to it--and that wasn't the question. My question, to which I answered unambiguously, was do they have any reason to fear for the information that they provide to the census about their personal security and safety? The answer is unambiguously no.

Industry committee  Absolutely.