Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like first to thank the members of the committee for inviting Statistics Canada to appear before the committee to contribute to its study on the use of indigenous languages in proceedings of the House of Commons. My presentation will cover three

Official Languages committee  We will absolutely do so.

Official Languages committee  All I am saying is that Canada's census is intended for Canadian society as a whole....

Official Languages committee  I hear you and I completely agree with you. I was not arguing that point. In terms of the method, I can just tell you that it's our job and it's not just a matter of figures. People who know me know that, in 2010 and 2012, Statistics Canada released more than 800 pages of analys

Official Languages committee  Regarding the period that seems to be missing, let me mention that, once qualitative tests have been conducted on all the census questions, both in the short and the long questionnaires, we have to analyze the data. For a number of questions, there are a number of possible option

Official Languages committee  I cannot tell you what I intend to do because it must be based on a robust analysis.

Official Languages committee  We are working on it.

Official Languages committee  I cannot tell you right now. All I can say with regard to our choice is that we will not simply inform you that we have made a decision. We will provide proof to demonstrate which approach is the best.

Official Languages committee  Most of the people in attendance could appreciate the complexity of the issue. At the end of the meeting, we reached a consensus on the approach we will use in our qualitative and quantitative testing. When we provide you with the questions—they have in fact been amended since ou

Official Languages committee  In five minutes?

Official Languages committee  Statistics are based on that. At Statistics Canada, we conduct extremely high quality surveys with extremely large samples, but none is as large as the long-form census. With the long form, we ask questions to 7 million people or more. In 2021, if we ask those questions to 10,00

Official Languages committee  Yes, we have had a few meetings and discussions with the FCFA on various topics.

Official Languages committee  Absolutely. The FCFA has designated someone to be part of our advisory committee. We are discussing this with the people from the FCFA.

Official Languages committee  Absolutely. We have Stephen Thompson, the director of strategic policy, research, and public affairs for the Quebec Community Newspapers Association. We also have Eva Ludvig, an education expert, and Jack Jedwab, who is also from Quebec.

Official Languages committee  As I said before, you have to understand that where the question module is placed in the questionnaire often has an impact on the answers given to subsequent questions. For instance, information about education is followed by information about the workplace and various aspects of