The long form census has been scrapped. Don't blame Statistics Canada, blame the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister's office. Statistics Canada had to know which form it was going to be allowed to use to be able to inform the printer whose deadline falls on Mon. Aug. 9/10. In the end, they had to go with the short form because that one is not in dispute. Tomorrow, you will probably read the headline that Statistics Canada eliminated the long form census. Technically, this is not true but the only option they had to get it to the printer on time. There is no logical reason to eliminate the long form. The PMO makes the claim that the reason for the change is to protect the privacy of Canadians. There have only been 3 complaints about the census in the last 20 years according to the Privacy Commission of Canada. According to former Minister of Industry Maxime Bernier, the last time the census was taken he received thousands of email complaints from people who felt the form was an invasion of privacy. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada heard about this and asked M. Bernier why the Privacy Commissioner was not informed, as should have happened. She also asked to see turn them over to her office, however when M. Bernier left his position as a Minister those emails were destroyed. Based on this information, the PMO cannot claim he changed the form for the sake of privacy.
Boy, what a way to shoot yourself in the foot. When you have everybody from economists, religious organizations who don't agree with each other on anything, school boards, banks and every progressive organization you could probably think of using data from the long form census, you can see why they are a little upset. There will be no comparative information this time around.
Then there are the political implications. You already have one of the largest Francophone groups filing an injunction and a lawsuit to prevent the 2011 census from being used. The are making a Charter challenge under language rights which is directly stipulated in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Then the following scenario; they win the lawsuit and the 2011 census is invalidated. This means that the Conservative Party of Canada and the Government of Canada just wasted a couple million dollars on a census they cannot use. If the judge stipulates the government has to go back to the original forms where 20% of the population gets the long form and 80% gets the short form, that will mean the form that goes to print Aug. 9/10 will be of no value whether it has been put in the field or not. Also, Statistics Canada will be forced to produce the long form even after they said we are going to stop using it. In the meantime, all the progressive and religious organizations I mentioned above will probably attack the government.
This brings up an interesting political strategy question. Why make yourself so vulnerable to the many organizations that don't like you? They probably will come after either the political party or the government itself. The current polling numbers for the Conservative Party of Canada has them at 29%, one point ahead of the Liberals and this is before anyone started really attacking them over the census issue. With the exception of the Francophone Organization, we have only heard others express their displeasure with the idea of the change to the press. Since the census has actually been changed now, memo to the PMO, you better look out for an onslaught of offensive public relations ie TV ads, radio ads, newspaper ads and the good old fashioned press conference decrying the census format. Then there is the always fickle press who will also go on the attack because they don't understand why the change was made and they are already being nit-picky because Mr. Harper will not respond to any questions about the census.
