And who would have guessed that the topic that takes me back to the blog is something as mundane as the census. Something so fundamental to how our country operates, yet something the overwhelming majority of Canadians never knew they could even have a political opinion on. Yet here we are, after the current federal Conservative government has tried to quietly make ideological changes over the summer, without consultation, the issue has blown up into a media firestorm for the past few weeks.
To recap, for anyone who has not heard about the issue yet: The census is a mandatory obligation for Canadians. Conducted once every five years (on the 1's and 6's), it provides a snapshot of our country, and data that is relied upon by academics, social scientists, government bureaucrats, businesses, and other organizations. Every Canadian household receives a census, but not every census is the same. 80% are known as the "short form", a basic list of seven questions asking the age, gender, marital status, mother language, and relationship of people living within a household. 20% of households receive the "long form" census, an extra set of over 50 questions asking about education, employment, income, ethnicity, mobility, migration patterns, and more. Both types are mandatory, (on average, each household will only receive the long form every 25 years), punishable with the threat of fines or jail time.
This summer, the government quietly announced that the long-form census would be eliminated for 2011, replaced with a voluntary long-form survey that will be sent to 33% of households. The provided rationale, is that many people felt a mandatory long-form is an invasion of personal privacy (one of the most frequently-cited examples is a question that asks how many bedrooms are in the home). The theory provided by the government is that by distributing voluntary surveys to more households, Statistics Canada can still gain an accurate snapshot of the country without threatening jail time for people who don't fill out the long form.
This announcement was picked up by the media (thankfully), and has been a hot topic for over three weeks. The government mouthpiece on this issue is Industry Minister Tony Clement, who has repeatedly gone on the record defending this decision. Across the internet, there has been widespread speculation that Mr. Clement actually advised AGAINST this change, yet Prime Minister Harper is determined to make this change for an ideologically-grounded political advantage (Conservative voters tend to prefer less government intrusion into the lives of Canadians).
What we know for sure is that Statistics Canada advised against the elimination of the long-form census. Clement admits that Statistics Canada was told the long-form was going to be eliminated, and was asked to give advice on how to mitigate the risk to data. He further asserts an assumption that if the Chief Statistician "gives me a set of options, he is comfortable with this options." Well Tony, it appears not. Today, chief statistician Munir Sheikh, resigned from his position with a public letter. He states,
This relates to a question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census.
It can not.
So the Chief Statistician is against the change. Apparently much of StatsCan is as well, and a broad collection of academic and social groups spanning nearly every sector, most media editorials, and even the Canadian provinces have weighed in.
Why is this such an important issue?
Quite simply, data is the fundamental tool for planning and policy. Without public census information, the government, academia, public policy organizations, and even businesses lose one of their most valuable sources of information. Census data is used to track social changes, plan transit routes, provide social services, and determine language needs. See here and here for some of the ways the elimination of the long-form could affect you directly.
This has a personal effect on me, as someone who has now held 2 jobs dealing with public advocacy roles. In both education and healthcare, the organizations I have represented present grounded policy options to government based on data. In education specifically, Canada already has the least amount of accessible data compared to every other OECD country in the world, and this move will cut even further. The health of Canadians is in jeopardy if hospitals, doctors and pharmacies cannot determine the prevalence rates of certain conditions, or make incorrect population estimates that result in overcrowded waiting rooms.
The basic problem is this: certain groups are much less likely to respond to a voluntary survey. To name just two, Aboriginal populations and the poor will see their response rates drop drastically. Yet, it is often precisely these populations who are often "at risk", that census data is used to help. One of the above links mentioned specifically how Calgary used census data to identify neighbourhoods on the verge of increased youth crime rates, and has developed preventative programming to avert this crisis.
But what about the business and not-for-profit community, how do they really use census data? Critics suggest, we should simply do our own polling at our own expense if we wanted to find out these results. And there is a little bit of merit to this argument, we will always be polling our members and customers for various reasons. However, every single piece of data must be standardized before it is useful. I was part of a survey about 8 months ago that collected the opinions of thousands of students across Canada at 21 schools. Over 70% of voluntary responses came from women, and Brock had the 2nd highest number of responses in the country. We could use simple raw data, but Brock and women would have been grossly overrepresented. We had to weight our sample responses to correct for these imbalances. We also had to weight the sample to correct for the proportion of students receiving government loans. How do we know that students without loans were overrepresented in our sample? Because we had a valid set of population statistics to work from. I'm in the middle of a survey in my new job, and at the moment, over 60% of people who have responded have incomes higher than $70,000 per year. Is this reflective of the general population? Of course not. How do I know this? Because Statistics Canada data reports on income levels. When our survey is closed, I will need to weight our responses to reflect the realities that we know exists in the national (and provincial) populations.
The ONLY way to do this is to have a reliable set of global data. If the vital long-form information is reduced to a voluntary sample, there is far less statistical reliability. We won't know for sure how many French speakers there are in a community, and school programming will suffer. We won't know for sure where the exploding population in Milton is coming from, we will only have voluntary samples to rely on. How many people in Kitchener commute to a job in Toronto, Guelph, or even Waterloo? Good luck finding out if expanded bus or train service is viable for commuters without expensive trial-and-error.
Census information is so fundamental to so many aspects of our life, even the ones that appear marginally-related. Get ready for more junk mail at your door, if businesses are unable to filter your neighbourhood for products they know your demographic doesn't purchase.
The census is one of the few civic duties that is expected of us as Canadians. We must pay taxes. We are expected to vote. And the government aggregates our information to help make decisions that affect all of us.
The great irony in this decision is that the voluntary survey will actually cost MORE money, yet give us LESS reliable data, costing us MORE in misdirected (wasted) spending, leading either to an INCREASE in your taxes or the national debt. There's no other course of action. Our neighbours to the south tried this voluntary idea, and quickly got rid of it. We don't need to make the same mistakes. Remember, the only personal burden to you is filling out a few extra questions once every 25 years. And guess what, the short census is still mandatory! And also punishible by the same jail time that proponents of this idea strongly criticize. If jail is the real problem, then change the penalty, but don't change the program.
Is this decision even politically valuable? That may be another blog post, if this issue doesn't get resolved soon. But the basic premise is, the decision to eliminate the long form is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It was rolled out quickly, secretly, without consultation, and against the advice of the experts. It has angered Canadians from coast to coast, especially math nerds. If you're angering pacifist math nerds in a greater proportion than the general population, something is going wrong.
I will say one final thought in conclusion. It's not too late for the decision to be reversed. And if the mandatory long-form census is reinstated, the Conservative government should be commended. Any government that listens to citizen feedback, evaluates the response, and listens to the people, should be commended for doing the right thing. Too many people demand something of their government, achieve the result they hoped for, and continue criticizing the government.
If I'm the government in power and I do something in response to your concern, I want to be thanked for listening to you. On the other hand, if I'm going to be criticized no matter whether I appease you or not, I'm going to do what I want anyway, because at least it achieves my objectives. If you won't thank me, what is the benefit of listening to you? So that said, if (and hopefully when) this poorly-thought decision gets reversed, look for me to lead the charge thanking the government. Until then, keep the census issue in the media, and in your letters to your MP.
Your basement dweller,
Rob Lanteigne
**edit. I've found a new online list showing which groups support this census change, and which groups oppose it. Find that list here
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