NDP demands immediate restoration of census long form

WINDSOR – By slashing the census, the Conservatives will eliminate the essential data needed by all levels of government. New Democrat Industry Critic Brian Masse (Windsor West) is calling on the government to immediately restore the mandatory census long form which collects essential information needed to make responsible decisions on important issues ranging from affordable housing to public transit to healthcare.

“It’s outrageous that the Industry Minister would scrap the census - an elemental tool used by all governments – in favour of a voluntary customer service response card” said Masse. “His sham wow infomercial tactics are simply not acceptable.”

Without any consultation, Minister of Industry Tony Clement converted the mandatory census long form, sent to one-fifth of Canadians, to a voluntary “national survey” which will be sent to one-third of Canadians. Statistics Canada has estimated that the change could cost $ 30 million.

Many groups including the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Canadian Council on Social Development as well as individual experts such as the former Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada oppose the change. One of many concerns is that data collected voluntarily cannot be compared over time and quickly becomes unusable. No other country makes part of its national census voluntary. The federal long form census is the only comprehensive data collected in Canada to examine in a granular systematic way information on Canadians in their local neighbourhoods.

“The Harper Conservatives’ action to degrade the national census exposes their disregard for the importance of facts in decision making,” said Masse. “This needs to be reversed immediately or else fact-free policy making will be imposed on every government across the country.”