I am a member of the National Statistics Council, an expert advisory group to Statistics Canada. We meet twice a year as a group with the Chief Statistician and senior Statscan staff. The members are a varied group of expert users of data. The Chair of the Council, Ian McKinnon, released this statement to the media last night. STATEMENT ON […]
Read moreMy union’s contribution to the debate follows: July 21, 2010 Hon. Tony Clement Minister of Industry 235 Queen Street Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H5 Dear Minister Clement: I write to ask you to reverse two recent decisions that threaten to undermine the quality and quantity of data produced by Statistics Canada. First, making the long-form questionnaire optional in the upcoming census […]
Read moreLast 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 […]
Read moreDr. 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. […]
Read moreSince Stephen Harper and David Cameron seem to be on the same wavelength, and the UK thinks it can trash census and turn to isources like credit records for its information needs, the story below on privacy, from Alberta, may be of possible interest. Report of an Investigation into the Security, Collection and Retention of Personal Information TJX Companies Inc. […]
Read moreWhile 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 […]
Read moreToday a truly surprising assembly of organizations – definitely not a coalition – made a group request for a meeting with the Minister who has been put in charge of executing the decision to ax the Census long-form questionnaire. Their objective? “We understand that the far-reaching impacts of this decision may not have been fully anticipated and we respectfully request […]
Read moreA few years ago an important study, by Marc Frenette, David Green and Kevin Milligan, Revisiting Recent Trends in Canadian After-Tax Income Inequality Using Census Data, was published by Statscan. It did not get much profile but its implications for the current census debacle are startling. The authors summarize: … [E]xisting data sources may miss changes in the tails of […]
Read moreThe Globe and Mail has allowed their poll about Census “intrusiveness†to stand for the third day. By 10 a.m. on Sunday over 32,000 people had registered their vote with the newspaper. Undoubtedly this is some kind of record for the daily Globe poll, which got 222 votes for the previous one. The question is highly leading – “Do you […]
Read moreJeffrey Simpson’s column yesterday nailed it. There is only one reason this Census situation is so senselessly white-hot: the government’s position. Its radical ideology and stunning stubbornness have raised the stakes alarmingly high. There must be plenty of Conservatives who are recoiling at the shenanigans of these so-called Conservatives. Every time Tony Clement and the Prime Minister’s spokesthingy says “coercive†[…]
Read moreYesterday a CCPA board member alerted my Exec Director that the Globe and Mail poll for the day was on the Census, noting that, very early in the day, the poll was running 2 votes yes for every vote no. The polling question: Do you think the long-form census questionnaire is an intrusion on the privacy of Canadians? It’s a […]
Read moreI was wondering where our fellow researchers and analysts stood on this topic. They were unusually silent, even though I had invited them to participate in a group process requesting a meeting with the Minister and PM, a group which, by the way, seemed to cross all boundaries and divides. I stand corrected. http://www.canada.com/Fraser+Institute+dismisses+need+mandatory+long+form+census/3287248/story.html Quite by accident on my way […]
Read moreThe Conservatives apparently think that it is deeply intrusive for the state to count your bedrooms through the mandatory long form census. “Asked to explain why this matters to the core Conservative constituency, one senior Tory strategist said, on background: “It’s all about the nanny state. Why is it mandatory to tell the government how many bedrooms are in your […]
Read moreJewish, Evangelical groups oppose census change http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Politics/20100715/census-backlash-100715/ And this just in: Stephen’s cat Cheddar opposes the changes too. He’s cheesed! A colleague notes:”If you have the Jews, the Evangelicals, the provinces, growing parts of the business lobby, the academics, Quebec, the City of Calgary, the Community Foundations, the United Ways, the CLC, etc, there’s not a lot left other than […]
Read moreSHEESH! I’ve never seen anything like this, have you? My fave – Kelly McParland’s Full Comment, at the bottom. Hilarious and right on the money. THURSDAY CLIPPINGS “NEWS HOUR FINAL†Global BC and Global Ontario Broadcast Date: Thursday July 15 2010 The Harper government says it’s making changes to the census based on widespread privacy complaints but as Shirlee Engel […]
Read moreThere has been a persistent drumbeat in the American business press about corporations accumulating cash. The argument is that, while corporations are making solid profits now, they are not investing in the US for fear of anti-business policies in the future. Obama has allegedly spooked corporate America into hoarding cash rather than investing. To test that story, I looked at […]
Read moreThe Honourable Tony Clement Minister of Industry House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Dear Minister Clement: Re: Labour Market Information and the 2011 Long-Form Census Questionnaire The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) requests that you, as the Minister responsible for Statistics Canada, revisit your decision to cancel the mandatory long-form census questionnaire. By discontinuing the long-form census and replacing it […]
Read moreHere’s the media round-up from over the weekend and today’s press. You will note almost all the stories are against the Harper decision to cut the Census long-form questionnaire. However the push-back-in-print has begun. Clark’s piece from the Province [BC] is an ode to libertarianism, and Ditchburn’s story for CP, “Census consensus among Conservatives”, offers some insights on where this […]
Read moreFrom strategies on austerity to shutting down public discourse, Prime Minister Harper seems to have found a new BFF at the G8 meetings. David Cameron’s new tough-as-nails coalition government is planning to scrap the Census in the U.K., which has been taken every 10 years for the past 200 years. It is viewed as “expensive and inefficient”. Unlike Canada’s decision, […]
Read moreThe sound of backlash to the government’s decision on cutting the Census long-form questionnaire continues to rumble across the country. Tuesday’s Globe and Mail published a story on the topic as well as a column by Andre Picard which was drawn primarily from the open letter on this blog. The next day the sound of outrage came from Mr. Harper’s […]
Read moreThis morning, Statistics Canada reported that employment jumped by an incredible 93,200 in June. But the total number of hours worked actually declined. In effect, less work was divided up between more workers. (By contrast, a similar employment jump in April corresponded to a large increase in hours worked.) Less Unemployment: A Central Canadian Story The advantage of dividing less […]
Read moreThe former Chief Statistician, Ivan Fellegi, who served Canada for 51 years, cannot identify any census in any country that is voluntary. From time immemorial, such is the nature of Census taking. Thus far there are only two people on public record in Canada taking a public stand against the Census and it is not because of the questions on […]
Read moreIf you care about the quality of data that helps us do our analysis, here is a small step you can take to help reverse the Statistics Canada/Government of Canada’s decision to eliminate the Census long form.
Read moreI recently had the pleasure of making a couple of presentations on public finances in Alberta. In February, I spoke at the “Remaking Alberta†conference in Edmonton. This past week, I served on an Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) panel in Calgary with Todd Hirsch from ATB Financial and Roger Gibbins from the Canada West Foundation. Like other provinces, Alberta […]
Read moreJune 30, 2010 Open letter to the Honourable Tony Clement, Ministry of Industry and Minister Responsible for Statistics Canada and Munir Sheikh, Chief Statistician, Statistics Canada Dear Sirs I am concerned by the Canwest report about the decision to restrict the upcoming Census, and the path the highly-regarded Statistics Canada and the Government of Canada seems to be headed down […]
Read moreFollowing a strong increase in March, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decreased slightly in April. Output edged down in both the goods-producing sector and the service sector. Annualized output stood at $1,229 billion in April, compared to a pre-crisis peak of $1,241 billion in July 2008 and a trough of $1,186 billion in May 2009. We are $12 billion below the […]
Read moreThat the HST will take a bite out of family budgets is clear to everyone. The main question right now is just how big of a bite. Two studies released in BC earlier this week asked this exact question but came to very different conclusions. On Monday, the Fraser Institute released a paper arguing that lower and middle income families […]
Read moreEarlier this month, the Bank of Canada raised interest rates ahead of its original schedule to head off inflation. Some commentators are calling for further rate hikes in the near future. But today’s Consumer Price Index suggests that inflation is not an impending threat. Adjusting for seasonal factors, consumer prices were lower in May than they had been in April. […]
Read moreLast Thursday’s Statistics Canada release of individual and household income data for 2008 marks a new era in the study of poverty in Canada. Instead of reporting only on the Low Income Cut Offs (LICO), as they used to, Statistics Canada reported on three of the most common measures of low income in the same publication (LICO, the low income […]
Read moreToday’s Employment Insurance (EI) figures for April indicate essentially no change in the number of Canadians receiving benefits or in the number filing claims. To put these flat EI numbers in context, April was the strongest month yet of labour-market recovery. Indeed, it saw the largest percentage increase in employment since August 2002. In one sense, today’s numbers confirm what […]
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