Cons' census

This week's dust-up over  scrapping the mandatory long form of the census  is a bit puzzling.

First of all, I had sort of expected this Conservative government, with its libertarian roots/leanings at the base, to raise a lot more flags about big brother peering into your life. Remember, that was behind a huge streak of opposition to the federal gun registry. So maybe the only surprise is that they're getting around to this now.

But more particularly, let's not forget that this Conservative party, politically, is a huge fan of collecting information about you.  Don't take my word for it -- check out this form here, part of what's known as the Constituent Information Management System, or CIMS.  It's largely because of CIMS, and the wealth of data it contains, that the Conservatives can send out neat things like greeting cards to cultural communities on various holidays and, more importantly, pick and choose the voters to target in building the base. A couple of years ago, there was a brief flurry of controversy over CIMS, helped by an excellent documentary by Keith Boag on CBC TV in November of 2007. (Sadly, the link is no longer online.) Boag actually got to see how CIMS works and showed it in the documentary. (Senator Finley, if you're reading this, remember you said I could take a look at CIMS in action too?)

 Anyway,  let's assume that the Conservative government is now playing to the libertarian base with this announcement on the census. Shouldn't that base be more worried about CIMS than Stats Can? Who do you trust more with your information -- a political party or government statisticians?

Comments

[Darwin O'Connor]

The long form of the census is an important tool for measuring and setting social policy. Without that, it will be much more difficult to identifying social problems and pointing out fixes, like our worsening income distribution.

One can only guess they are doing this because they don't want to fix or even know about social problems.

[David Gagnon]

Is this solely a decision by TC on a whim or is there a broader, deeper reason? It is contrary to anything one can imagine as being as being good public policy or a best practice as recommended by StatsCan.

This is part of our national historical record and (like other programs being killed) it will be difficult or "politically impossible" to restart it after the coming propaganda campaign.

Happy ending: The CIMS saves me having to write my email address when I return our MP's coupons asking "Do you support cute puppies/children? YES/NO" ... I just write "on file" on the form.

[BC Progressive]

Susan:

Let's for once forget about the politics of this issue and concentrate on the actual issue. How is a government to run effectively without good data? Anyone interested in good governance would summarily reject this obvious attempt by conservatives to make government less effective. Pleading ignorance is the easiest way for a government to buy time, and reducing data collection/sharing is one step in the long process of making government less accountable. You realise that even in the US, scrapping the census is an ideal only held by extremists like Michelle Bachman of the US congress. So, instead of widespread disdain at the government for holding such an extremist position, you people in the press give this proposal a place on the table by discussing how it will play in the polls, same with climate change, or evolution, or crime, or drugs, or thousands of other issues.

BTW, I don't think there's a libertarian argument against the government collecting the data it needs to run effectively. Every government in the world collects data. Look at http://www.census.gov to see where Stats Can should be going with its data collection and sharing.

Our government is already a closed and secretive one, no need to talk about the politics of this issue and give this odious idea any attention. If anything, you in the press need to be clamouring for the data Stats Can collects (our data, collected using our taxpayer money) to be widely available in an open and transparent format without us being double charged for it

[Karen Krisfalusi]

Who do I trust more with my information? The government. That's because they have the most complete data. Though it's not accessible data and though it's not collated and matched to benefit me, I know that I don't want to update minor databases. The government's database is the only one that matters and when it's open to all it will begin to have wings. Take something like abortion. The statscan abortion tables are not reliable at all. "Use with caution". Why? Because of the politicization of women's healthcare. Well -- statscan doesn't have the data but SOMEONE DOES. Who? The government. And do they also know who is religious without census. Why of course! Those tithes and donations are tax writeoffs. So I count on the media to press on with their demands for accessibility and lets get the real story out about who we are. And in the meantime, let's not update alot of other databases with our data. What we have to give -- to the government -- IS ALL WE SHOULD GIVE. til things are sorted out.

[R. Payne]

on a separate topic

I was reading that the G20 fence cost was double the amount estimated. Now that the $9.4 million fence has been dismantled what happens to it? Does the company get to reclaim it (did we rent it or buy it?) Does it now belong to the federal government or the province or the city? Or does the contractor now get to sell it again to someone else?

[lmp]

Because our statistical record keeping agency has been so good, and because they check and re-check data (think of the huge revisions done in the US by the Bureau of Labor Statistics--basically every month you get a "oops" about the previous month's numbers) StatsCan has been called the best record keeping agency in the OECD.

We get extremely important data from the long-form. For instance, we get a picture every five years, of things like education levels of those leaving and moving to various provinces.

Most importantly of all, we have had a common data source in this country which has saved us from what you see in places like the US, where everyone waves their own numbers around and there are no agreed-upon facts. (Yes, I know people wave various polls and survey data around but at least we have a gold standard to check against.)

StatsCan, unlike some other government agencies has never had a data leak. They take confidentiality very seriously.

If I were going to worry about "intrusiveness" I would worry about the new "information sharing" agreement the government just signed with the US, even if Canadian flights are just flying over the country but not stopping at any American airport. ( I read an article in the UK Guardian about the amount of information a researcher demonstrated they could get from just a discarded boarding pass stub and how they could get a complete identity. Now that was scary.)

Thank you Susan for such a thoughtful post on an important topic.

[JonnyX]

The purpose of the census, I thought, was to confirm the population of the country so that the people can have equivalent representation in the Government. They don't need any more information than that, and I can't believe so many commenters here are OK with them asking for it! What is my level of education? None of your damn business! What is my religion? None of your God damned business! What is my level of income? Nowhere near enough in this day and age! All the census needs to know is how many people live in my house of voting age, with how many children. Anything else is intrusive and an invasion of privacy. Why do you want to know? So CIMS can send me a Christmas card? My "elected representatives" rarely seem to actually represent me, so they don't need to know anything about me until they do!