Industry committee  I would just confirm that I do think, again, that the balance should be a matter of course for all bodies that we are looking at. In terms of technical expertise, that is indeed useful. I should add, however, that quality of statistics is not only a matter of technical accuracy.

Industry committee  A country's executive lays out the basic information that it wants to have, but the specific formulation that is used in the census or the specific method that is employed to obtain that information is typically left to the statistics office. In many countries, you do have a ministerial conclusion that a particular survey or census should be conducted at a particular moment, typically because you need budgetary resources to do so.

Industry committee  If the legislation is complete by the end of 2017, that would certainly be sufficient for us to review it, because we only have to report back to the OECD council by the end of 2018, and so we could time things appropriately.

Industry committee  Absolutely.

Industry committee  I don't have any particular point to make concerning the short or long-term form in regard to Canada, because I haven't studied it closely enough. In general, we do think that responses to the census should be mandatory, and this should be laid down in a legal framework.

Industry committee  We have not looked at this specifically, but it sounds like a very reasonable thing to have.

Industry committee  Following the passage of the OECD recommendation on good statistical practice, we have put in place review processes in all of the OECD countries. This is on the way as we speak. It will be finished by the end of next year. Canada has not been reviewed yet, because it makes sense to wait on what is happening with legislation before we look into this.

Industry committee  There's no clear pattern here. Really, you have all sorts of configurations in different countries, so I don't think you can make a general statement on this.

Industry committee  I don't think I can throw out a figure here without—

Industry committee  Really, I can't give you a good answer. I can research this a bit and come back to you, if you are specifically interested in this. We are just building up a little database on this, for the OECD countries at least, so I can provide that information later on.

Industry committee  I guess the trade-off is between the reactivity and operability of a council versus its full representativity of different parts of society in the country. I guess you need a minimum level of diversity that is reflective of the society that you want to cover. As I said before, I sit on the Swiss Federal Council, which has a relatively good representation of....

Industry committee  The members are appointed by Parliament. There's a suggestion made by the chief statistician, but the approval process goes through the Swiss Parliament.

Industry committee  I didn't quite hear what you said, sorry.

Industry committee  Not that I knew of, or certainly not since I've been a member of that group.

Industry committee  I think there are two aspects that come into play here. One is how well you want the various parts of your society represented. Of course, the bigger the country and the more provinces, nationalities, and so on that you have in the country, the more there is a cost of having a small group, because not everyone will be well represented.