We Need a Mandatory Census
Jul 20, 2010
census, inequality, long-form, mandatory
What the Federal Government must have perceived as a relatively minor policy change has developed over the last week or so into a much more significant political issue.
Recently, the Harper Government decided that it would remove the mandatory long-form version of the census from Statistics Canada’s arsenal. Exactly why they decided this needs to be done remains somewhat of a mystery.
The government has advanced a number of arguments to justify the abolition of the long-form questionnaire in the 2011 census in favour of a new voluntary “National Household Survey.” But each claim is either flawed, faulty or incomplete. In the words of a recent Globe and Mail editorial, “…together they display a misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of census-taking, and a worrying approach to governing.”
Industry Minister Tony Clement believes that the NHS will be just as accurate as the old long-form version. However, voluntary surveys have a host of inherent biases and other participation issues that render them anything but.
Clement has also stated that the long-form census questionnaire generated many privacy complaints from citizens. However, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has gone on record as stating that there have been a grand total of three complaints in the last two censuses.
Perhaps most controversially, Clement has said that Statistics Canada supports this new approach. Yet the agency continues to refuse to go on record in support of it. Employees at Statscan are apparently quite upset with the changes, as the census itself is viewed by many as the ‘flagship’ of the department’s mandate.
Furthermore, Statistics Canada’s advisory council, which was created by and whose members are appointed by the Industry Minister, was shocked by the news of the change. According to member Don Drummond, the council “unanimously believed that abandoning the mandatory long-form census would skew the 2011 results, causing a statistical break with previous surveys that would make it impossible to read and project trends accurately.”
Recently, a letter was sent to Clement from two dozen leaders of business, labour, government and academia that warned that voluntary compliance for those receiving the long form of the census would “gravely compromise its integrity”. A wide-cross section of Canadian organizations and groups have spoken out against the change, and now even Facebook groups are calling for the return to the long form census.
The United States has experimented with a national voluntary survey in the past. It didn’t work. The data was so incomplete and degraded that it was determined that fixing it would be too expensive. The approach was quickly abandoned. Ivan Fellegi, who led Statscan for 22 years prior to 2008, has said he would resign before implementing a voluntary long form survey, for the risk is too great that fewer people would respond to the census, and that it would cost more and produce less valuable data.
It is apparent that the elimination of the long-form mandatory census will affect many areas of Canada’s public life, not the least of which are academics and policy-makers who utilize this important data for a myriad of purposes. What doesn’t make sense is that the government has yet to offer any reason for its elimination that holds water. There ought to be much better reasons for important changes in public policy than the ones it has put forward so far.
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Current (now former) chief statistician Munir Sheikh has resigned as a result of this decision, stating in a news release that "I want to take this opportunity to comment on a technical statistical issue which has become the subject of media discussion. This relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census," Sheikh wrote. "It can not. Under the circumstances, I have tendered my resignation to the Prime Minister." Industry Minister Tony Clement stated that the voluntary census was an option put forward by Sheikh and Statistics Canada, and that he accepted their recommendations, however Statistics Canada has indicated that the voluntary form was NOT their recommendation. Clearly the Harper Conservatives have their own agenda in this, one that (as with so many other things they do) they aren't about to share with Canadians.
Bill - 2010-07-22 09:07