Author: Armine Yalnizyan

It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. In the news today: Statistics Canada has been trying to find $7 million in cuts. Five surveys have been axed so far. But those five don’t add up to enough savings, so more cuts to come. That’s on top of the surveys cut, throttled or mothballed mentioned in this post, and […]

The following will appear in the Hill Times’ October 18th edition. The Harper Conservatives repeatedly banged Canadians over the head this summer with their minority viewpoint on Canada’s long-form census questionnaire. The questions, they said, were intrusive, and the government coercive for expecting answers. Mandatory suddenly became an ugly word for the law-and-order brigade. Interestingly, their actions on the census […]

Cabinet ministers from the governments of Ontario and Quebec have sent a letter to Minister Tony Clement, calling the census decision a “mistake” and asking that the federal government “reverse this course of action as soon as possible”. The provinces, together, represent 62% of the labour market and spend billions of dollars every year on training and education. The Ministers […]

The following will appear in the Hill Times on Monday, September 27, 2010 Everyone knows that the Harper government’s decision on the census is destructive madness, including the Harper government. But there is a growing sense that it’s too late to reverse the decision. It’s not. The Harper government has been saying it’s too late to change things since early […]

On September 9th, Canada’s Prime Minister received a letter from Mel Cappe, David Dodge, Alex Himelfarb and Ivan Fellegi. It opened with a stern warning that government actions with regard to the census over the summer “put the well earned credibility and respected international standing of Statistics Canada at risk”. Then they told him how to fix the problem. [The […]

Tom Flanagan, Steven Harper’s guru in younger days and a political sherpa who helped guide the rise of the New Right in Canada in its early days, has put in his two cents on the census affair. It is a thoughtful piece, if somewhat predictable. But it leans on two important facts in an erroneous way. In both cases, my […]

There are many ways to view the legacy of Prime Minister Harper and his Government thus far, but few offer evidence that the processes and institutions of democracy are held with any esteem. The selection of the latest Governor General of Canada has been described as one such rare example. The process of selecting the Governor General was, notably, an […]

Since I last posted something on the Census here (August 1! Time flies!), every passing day has advanced the census story with dizzying speed. I’ve said it before: this story has more legs than a bucket of chicken. Here are the top notes of the last 10 days, ending in a fascinating and uniquely Canadian lesson in politics. It is […]

A superb article in the Toronto Star by Antonia Zerbisias, entitled “Who Are You”, today features a fascinating interview with Dr Jan Kestle at Environics Analytics regarding their use of census data. In the print edition it has a data geek’s centrefold! Two pages of how census data is used to profile 66 different household/lifestyle types that Environics claims typifies […]

A research colleague from Calgary sent along news of the latest Calgary Herald editorial on the topic. I am copying the email with permission, on condition of anonymity. ********************** Here is a link to the lead editorial in yesterday’s Calgary Herald. This is the second editorial on this in the past 3 weeks. You know you’re in trouble when the […]

I am posting this on behalf of a colleague from Victoria B.C., Ian Faris, an employee with Statistics Canada for 20 years, and now a research analyst and member of the Canadian Social Data Consortium. The data consortium is organized to “liberate” census and related data at a modest fee for city planners, public health bodies, school boards, health districts, […]

Are there good alternatives to the mandatory census long-form questionnaire to collect the information that we need? Last Saturday CBC’s The House had a sparkling section on the census which offered some thoughts from a Danish statistician and the views of Canada’s longest serving Chief Statistician, Ivan Fellegi. On Tuesday Tavia Grant’s superb article in the Globe and Mail looked […]

Professor Emeritus at University of British Columbia, William Stanbury, has produced a handy treatise on coercion, published online in the Hill Times this week. Stanbury focused his career as a professor of economics on strategic decision-making in business, including government relations, competition rules, regulations and other public policies that strengthen business performance. His insightful summary of the arguments on coercion […]

Anybody that has been watching the unfolding of the census dust-up could be forgiven for no longer knowing where to place their bets. Are the Conservatives really going to go through with this disruptive measure, or are there still ways out? The answer is yes, a successful resolution is still possible (read on). But nothing is guaranteed and, wow, what […]

Once again Stephen Harper has charted a course for the nation that drops the ball in the provinces’ and territories’ lap. Since forming government in 2006, the Harper Conservatives have withdrawn federal presence from social policy, health policy, and climate change while ramping up defence, security and trade. The cut to the GST was less about putting a little more […]

Stephen Harper’s 1991 master’s thesis used census data to make his case about “political business cycles” and he even noted how disruptive changes in methodology could be for long-term analysis in understanding how Canadian political behaviour changed over time. He ran a model to show the links between variables such as unemployment and changes in government. The unemployment data is […]

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 resignation of Chief Statistician Munir Sheik has far-reaching political consequences, and may be the game-changer in this ongoing census saga. But it is the extreme conclusion of a far more serious and consequential development – the politicization of the public service. Read Alex Himelfarb on the topic, a former Clerk of the Privy Council (Canada’s top public servant) and […]

There aren’t many stories like this one. You have to go back half a century, to Diefenbaker and Coyne, to find a parallel. Then too, a Prime Minister increasingly viewed as overly controlling insisted on an unworkable policy until the Governor of the Bank of Canada had no choice but to step down, in an attempt to preserve both his […]

Last week someone sent me an email with a subject line that read “Emergency Singalong” They had watched the evolution of the census story with dismay and decided it was time to turn things around. Cleverly rewriting the lyrics to Garry and the Playboy’s 1960s hit Count Me In, a group assembled at his house last Friday. The rest, as […]

Dr. Bill Stanbury — a regular contributor to the Hill Times, professor emeritus at UBC, economist and self-described as centre-right — has urged me to work with him to compile a list of every organization who has taken a public stand on opposing the government’s decision to ax the census long-form questionnaire, and replace it with a voluntary household survey. […]

While Canadians tried to talk census sense to their rulers, here’s what the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, had to say about the importance of the census on Sunday July 11: “Population data helps leaders and policy-makers to make informed decisions about policies and programmes to reduce poverty and hunger, and advance education, health and gender equality,” The […]