A Business POV and Direct Link to Clement’s Use of Census Long-Form Data
A highly regarded economist and business consultant sent me a link to his view of the significance and consequence of the Government’s decision to axe the census long-form questionnaire.
Elegantly concise and to the point, it reads like a cheat sheet for an exam on why Census long-form information is important, from the on-the-ground business and public service delivery POV.
The links in the “JCI Census Notes” section are superb and worth a read.
Check it out.
The kicker is this: “In April 2009, JCI completed the most recent in a series of studies, for Minister Clement’s ministry, Industry Canada, on knowledge-based activities in detailed industries in Canada that was directly reliant on special tabulations from the long-form data”
Harper’s New Conservatives pursue corruption to retain and gain power.
Democracy works when the informed public votes in fair elections.
Destroying the validity of the census would mean that no one could question.
Governments not punished for corruption, are encouraged to increase their corruption “unjust exclusion or disempowerment†as means of retaining power.
“Since it is a very expensive process to introduce a survey, far more than any savings from dropping the long form, the Tories should stop this nonsense now. If the Tories do not revisit this decision, it can only confirm their status as inappropriate managers of our country.”
http://www.qog.pol.gu.se/conferences/november2005/papers/Warren.pdf
Timothy Webster
Green Party candidate Richmond Delta
Seems that the Canadian Bankers’ Assn, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives are ok with the changes. (Globe & Mail, 24/7/10) So are their Fraser Institute acolytes. The former (I’m alright, Jack) can afford to do their own research, the latter can’t afford to be out of step with the former. Class split. Harper’s Canadian Republicans play the populist Tea Party card as justification for census evisceration while standing firmly onside with big business bullhorns. The rest of the private sector is left to twist in the wind re data upon which to base plans and decisions.
Flaherty had his say today, stating that Canadians will answer this survey because they like to do things for the country.
Nothing like a little nationalism to attack the nation. If Canadians don’t mind filling out the survey, how about we dispense with the feel good exercise about how Canadians love to voluntarily fill out forms. They don;t like to, hence the whole point of why Dr. Sheikh resigned. Scientifically it has been proven countless times that a voluntary survey just does not stand up to a mandatory.
It is amazing how deep these tories are willing to go with this, and now that they have awoken the mass backlash, they are willing to go the distance on minimizing teh political cost, but that will do little good for planners and policy makers when they receive a whole lot less reliable data. And when we have bus routes and buses out of whack, not enough fire departments assigned to areas, and a thousands of other decisions now less reliable, I hope Mr. Flaherty still thinks it was a justified gamble.
Can the libertarians really think that destroying the census and which ultimately destroys Statistics Canada is somehow a positive outcome for these right wing nuts.
This is such a deep attack on the ability of governing, it just is uncanny that we are actually witnessing these out of control ideologues destroying our country.
I am simply amazed. I take it the libertarians believe that information is a private good and hence deserved to be only collected and maintained by private assets. And of course, those assets will have to be fairly large in order to collect such information.
THis is a grand plan indeed, as I just cannot see HArper hanging it all on the line for just this articifial crisis in privacy that he created. Out of no where comes a privacy cry and out of no where comes one of the largest attacks on the Canadian state.
I wonder, given all this summer time libertarianism, are the tories thinking they may get defeated in the fall election? Potentially this is all a- just in case we get thrown out series of maneuvers , we better ram this stuff through for our base.
I do hope it all back fires, as this is a huge price for Canadians to pay.
I have never been so phracking miffed at these tories as this last week. Talk about being destructive to the country. I always thought it would be somekind of legislative assault on totally weakening unions. (although there is still time for that)
Paul