Harper knows best, or does he? As people became increasingly aware of the significance of the decision to kill the mandatory long-form census, a groundswell of alarm has turned into a wall of opposition. By ARMINE YALNIZYAN Published July 19, 2010    11 Comments

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Four Saturdays ago, as the G20 protests riveted public attention, the Government of Canada quietly made public its decision to scrap the mandatory census long-form questionnaire.

As people became increasingly aware of the significance of the decision, a groundswell of alarm turned into a wall of opposition.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is famous for uniting the right. Now he may become infamous for uniting the entire political spectrum.

The decision on the census affects everyone: business people, investors and marketers; every level of government; the alternative to government, in the form of community-based services and the charities that support them; pollsters and politicians; and researchers who identify the long-term trends and challenges we all face.

Last week, a highly unusual coalition of people from all these sectors united to hold a news conference. The event was organized in less than 48 hours, so broad-based was the concern.

This week, they have issued a formal request, seeking an audience with Industry Minister Tony Clement to advise him how far-reaching the consequences of this decision will be.

Meet the signatories, in alphabetical order: Craig Alexander, president, Canadian Association for Business Economics and chief economist of TD Bank; Rachel Bard, CEO, Canadian Nurses Association; Ken Battle, president, Caledon Institute of Social Policy; Marni Cappe, president, Canadian Institute of Planners; Mel Cappe, president and CEO, Institute for Research on Public Policy, and former Clerk of the Privy Council; Debbie Douglas, executive director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants; Don Drummond, Donald Matthews Fellow and Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, former chief economist of the TD Bank and former ADM of Finance; Nicholas Gazzard, executive director, Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada; Ken Georgetti, president, Canadian Labour Congress; Roger Gibbins, president and CEO, Canada West Foundation; Al Hatton, president and CEO, United Way of Canada; Alex Himelfarb, director, Glendon School of International and Public Policy, and former Clerk of the Privy Council; Dr. Matthew Hodge, president, National Specialty Society for Community Medicine; Jan Kestle, president and founder, Environics Analytics; Frances Lankin, president and CEO, United Way Toronto; Roger Martin, dean, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto; Nik Nanos, president and CEO, Nanos Research; Dr. Cordell Neudorf, chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Public Health Association; Mark Stabile, director, School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto; Penni Stewart, president, Canadian Association of University Teachers; Peggy Taillon, executive director, Canadian Council on Social Development; Mike Veall, president-elect, Canadian Economic Association; and Carol Wilding, president and CEO, Toronto Board of Trade.

Are these signatories, from all parts of Canada’s social and economic spectrum, forming an anti-Harper assembly? Not at all. The need for information is neither left nor right.

These people are anti-this-decision. That’s because this is a bad decision. It must be reversed.

This government presents itself as populist, less interested in the opinions of the elite and the chattering classes than in the concerns of Main Street.

For that very reason, this group assembled to demonstrate to the minister, in practical terms, the necessity of census data in day-to-day operations and long-term planning, from building Canada’s new Main Streets and the sewers under them, to delivering goods and services to the people who walk those streets.

Many other organizations are determined to convince the government to change its mind, including the Canadian Statistical Association, the Canadian Marketing Association and religious groups. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) was one of the first off the block to sound a warning, and—while only Quebec, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island have aired their grievances publicly—federal/provincial discussions are clearly taking place. Should the matter not be resolved, we can expect the Council of the Federation meeting in early August to find this thorny issue on its agenda.

Let us be clear. By “resolved,” we mean “reversed.” Nothing but a broad mandatory survey, asking pertinent questions about Main Street Canada—about who we are and how we live—can provide the information required to govern and serve a modern, complex society.

Sadly, both the scope of the questions and the nature of the census as a mandatory civic duty run counter to this government’s view of the role of the state.

We know this government does not often change course, even when under great pressure, though there have been examples of nimble reconsideration such as overturning the decision to rewrite the lyrics of the national anthem.

More typically, the strategy is to take a position and to tough out the consequences. This Prime Minister has a dim view of dissent. And that’s what makes the situation white hot, needlessly so.

There is no possible compromise here: asking Canadians to live without accurate census data is like asking surgeons to operate in the dark. No matter how skilled they are, they will make mistakes.

Without this information, governments, businesses, community agencies and charities will be unable to plan for the optimal allocation of resources. Money will be wasted, and that means a lower quality of life for all of us.

But the people who will pay the most dearly are those who were the most vulnerable to begin with, the poor, aboriginal populations, recent immigrants, racial minorities and people with disabilities.

Without this information, we cannot make informed decisions about where to plan the next extension of public transit, or where to target different types of health resources.

In the event of a health pandemic, there will be insurmountable challenges in prioritizing emergency response.

Education is key to everyone’s future, but we won’t know where the best educational outcomes are occurring across neighbourhoods, cities and provinces, and what drives the differences.

Communities will not be able to identify the area of greatest need for the next after-school program, immigrant settlement service or child care centre.

Police will be unable to recruit a labour force that best matches the communities they serve.

Canadian entrepreneurs won’t be able to target the best markets for launching a product or service.

Investors won’t know where demand is heading without reliable data on the changing demographics of the marketplace.

Charities won’t be sure whether they are addressing today’s needs or tomorrow’s problems.

Politicians won’t have the information they need to follow the changing contours of their constituencies.

We won’t be certain how the current generation of new Canadians will compare to the generations that came before, a huge issue for a country that will lean heavily on immigration in the years to come.

We will have little sense beyond anecdote of how First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities are faring in their journey towards economic security and human development.

We will only be guessing about the nature of the fallout from the Great Recession: did inequality grow, and if so, by how much and where? Who was impacted most by the downturn, and how widespread were the effects?

From neighbourhood to municipality, region and nation, the census provides a snapshot of who we are, what is changing and what needs to change. That picture is accurate because it is mandatory.

The knowledge it offers forms the backbone of our society, an information society that needs and wants to know about itself.

The switch to a voluntary National Household Survey (NHS) we are told will cost upwards of $35-million. Having entered the Age of Austerity, this likely means other parts of Statistics Canada will suffer budget cuts to pay for it. There is no “extra” $35-million. We will pay twice for this decision, once to launch it and once to fund it from other surveys on which we rely. The recent history of delaying, squeezing or eliminating critical surveys related to peoples’ economic well-being—surveys related to the distribution of pensions, savings, indebtedness, income and wealth—will remain.

If the decision to move to a voluntary NHS stands, statisticians across the country are confident we will waste money on, essentially, junk data. Despite its huge and costly scale, the information emerging from a voluntary survey will produce unrepresentative and consequently unusable information, particularly for the local level.

The government, for its part, has said the decision is made, further discussion is pointless.

We respectfully disagree.

This public debate is escalating, as it should. The stakes are far too high.

Canadians of every political stripe are resisting the idea that a minister or a prime minister could unilaterally decide what we need to know. Indeed, that way lies something very dark for democracy.

Today Tony Clement, the minister responsible for this file, is being invited to work with bankers, business people, healthcare providers, labour leaders, researchers, pollsters and agencies serving immigrants, all of whom wish only to discuss how to craft a solution that meets everyone’s needs.

Now the government has a choice. The simple request for a meeting may indeed break the branch they have climbed so far out on. Will the government land on its feet, or do a face-plant?

Stay tuned. This is a story of democracy in action.

Armine Yalnizyan is a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Toronto.