Industry committee  Let me just clarify. The reason, in my mind, it would work is that the chief statistician—if I understand the bill correctly—has the option of making something voluntary or mandatory but informing the minister. So I cannot imagine that a future chief statistician would want to ma

Industry committee  The Statistics Act is totally unclear on the issue and Bill C-36 is silent on the issue. What I am suggesting, making section 21 subservient to 22, would—in my view—solve the problem. The way it would solve the problem is that section 4 gives the issue of methodological decision

Industry committee  No, I think you need to have the flexibility to ask the best questions.

Industry committee  I think StatsCan made it pretty clear in one of the releases, which is on the website, that the two are totally different and you cannot compare the results.

Industry committee  I can give you an example of a comparison of the survey with the census. In 2011, there were some areas where questions were asked in the short-form census that were the same as in the long-form census, the national long-form survey. If you look at that small number of questions

Industry committee  If you make the simple change that says section 21 is subservient to section 22, to me that would solve a huge problem.

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  As Mel said, I find it really difficult to define those terms in legislation.

Industry committee  I wouldn't worry about putting in those words. I don't think it's helpful in solving the problem you're talking about. The problem for me is this: I think the bill quite correctly tells the chief statistician, “You will do this. However, the government can send you a directive”.

Industry committee  It is not appropriate for the government to do that.

Industry committee  At the same time, I understand the difficulty of having something in law to do this. My indirect way to get to that is to strengthen the clause where the government can send a directive by saying “under exceptional circumstances”. Professor Thomas suggested you table it in Parlia

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  I'm trying to solve this problem indirectly. The biggest issue right now for me in the law is that section 22 lists the things that the chief statistician can make decisions on. Section 21 says that the census questions are done by the cabinet.

Industry committee  I don't know why the government has resisted the idea, but as a former chief statistician, I find the principles to be extremely valuable. For example, Bill C-36 talks about the chief statistician doing his or her job. It makes it very clear, and the language in that is what I wo

Industry committee  They would change as well. The principles change, so putting them in the legislation creates the challenge that you have to amend that law. The other thing I want to mention here is that Canada plays a huge role in the UN. I, as the representative of StatsCan, was put in that po