Census Nonsense

Who'da thought the country would get all worked up over the census? And in the middle of the summer, too.

Every five years, we have a national census. Most of us fill out a short form. About one in five of us is selected at random to complete a longer, more detailed version. The Harper government wants to make filling out the longer version voluntary. So what's the big deal?

Think of the country as a classroom. If you want to know whether or not the class understands, say the Pythagorean Theorem, you have to give the test to everybody. Just asking the keeners who put their hands up won't give you an accurate picture. Same for the census.

If you make filling out the longer version voluntary, the kind of people who'll do so won't form a representative sample of the country as a whole. In fact, they'll be a certain kind of person; same for those who won't (insert stereotypes here).

And the data you collect not only won't be reliable, it also won't be directly comparable to the data gathered from all the previous censuses. And did I mention all this voluntariness costs $30 million dollars more than doing it the usual way?

So why are the Tories doing this? Good question.

Forget all the nonsense about going to jail for refusing to fill out the long-form. No one ever has. And anyway, if the government wants to get rid of that provision in the legislation, they can; I'm sure no one would object. This is what's called "changing the channel" in political circles.

The Tories themselves have given an ideological reason: some people don't like giving information to the government. They haven't provided any data to back up this assertion and it sounds like they bought it ready-made off a Tea Party website. Anyway, they haven't said we won't have to tell the government how much money we made come tax time, or whether we've had anything to drink tonight when we get pulled over in a R.I.D.E. spot check, so that's just another red herring.

Many people suspect the real reason is, in fact, ideological though: the census reveals inconvenient truths that don't agree with the Tories' fantasy view of the world. Stockwell Day's recent musings about the need to build prisons for the perpetrators of unreported crimes provides a good example. Statistics show crime rates are falling, but if the Tories want to build prisons, that's embarrassing. Critics suspect the Tories would like to wish homelessness, poverty, inequality, and a host of other social issues away. It'll be easier if there's no census data available to contradict them.

Good public policy, not to mention sound business decisions, requires accurate information, not wishful thinking. That's why the Tories have encountered opposition over their action not just from provincial and municipal governments, but also from not-for-profits and businesses. It's a tough world out there; Canada can't afford to fight blindfolded with one hand tied behind its back. That's why this latest boneheaded move by the Harper Conservatives matters.