Byline: Jennifer Ditchburn
Source: THE CANADIAN PRESS
Will Canadians want to fill out a voluntary national survey next year, or even the mandatory short census, after hearing the Conservative government criticize the activity?
That’s the question that some experts and even Statistics Canada are grappling with after the month-long communications war Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office and cabinet have waged against the “intrusive” mandatory long census.
Although the government has left the basic, compulsory short census intact, officials realized early on that it too might be affected by confusion around the elimination of its longer, sister questionnaire.
An extra $25 million has been earmarked for 2011 by the government to encourage Canadians to fill out not only the new National Household Survey – its replacement for the long census – but also the short census. Sources close to the census said it was an early acknowledgment response rates could be affected by the debate.
More details of the new census plan could emerge today when Industry Minister Tony Clement, his deputy minister, and former chief statistician Munir Sheikh appear before a Commons committee.
Sheikh resigned last week when he found he could no longer defend the government’s decision to replace the mandatory long form with the voluntary survey.
While Clement, and more recently, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, have said that Canadians should do their civic duty and fill out the questionnaires, some of their colleagues have not been as charitable or even factual.
Transport Minister John Baird and Treasury Board President Stockwell Day have commented sarcastically about people being threatened with jail time for not divulging the number of bathrooms in their home and what they’re reading, questions that actually have not appeared in the long census.
Day went even further in his criticism of the mandatory long census last Friday, saying prisoners of war are compelled to answer fewer questions than the long census.
Dimitri Soudas, Harper’s director of communications, sent an email to reporters three weeks ago pointing out that 21,000 Canadians had identified themselves as following the “Jedi” religion in the 2001 census.
The message came the same week that the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada wrote to Harper underlining how important data on religion was to their community work.
Trivializing the census – or survey – data could have lasting repercussions on StatsCan’s work, says former federal statistician Jacob Ryten.
“If you start off by saying that the census has questions that are frivolous, or that it’s intrusive and unnecessary, this has an effect on how people view the census,” said Ryten, who now consults internationally.
“The harm has already been done, except that you don’t know to what extent.”
This article is provided as a public service and does not necessarily reflect the position of Canadian Jewish Congress.
