It's baaack!
By now, many Canadians have received their long-form census.
If you are one of them, have no fear; this is among the Liberal government's sensible promises that people seem to largely be welcoming with open arms.
Despite what those who worked so hard to destroy the long-form census would have you believe, there is no shortage of popular support for the initiative. Statistics Canada reported an overwhelming response from Canadians apparently eager to complete the forms. The evidence lay no further than in the fact some 700,000 people completed their forms online — on the first day alone.
By the end of the following day, Statistics Canada officials expected a total of upwards of two million answered questionnaires. The agency was even looking into why the census site had crashed for 45 minutes during the first day, which some might speculate was simply the result of an overload of web traffic that the site could not handle all at once.
The long-form census offers a valuable insight that provides critical data in guiding well informed and more effective and efficient public policies. Government officials represent their people, or are at least supposed to, so they should know who those people are before taking measures that directly affect citizens' lives. Leaders cannot make wise decisions that will benefit our society with a blurry picture — nor should they be expected to — and the census sharpens the image.
In short, the long-form census never should have been scrapped in the first place.
It's great to see such enthusiasm from Canadians who want to engage in the process.
Just about the only knee-jerk reaction against the long-form census, aside perhaps from sheer disinterest, is to claim it is nothing more than an invasion of privacy.
Meanwhile, the same government that got rid of the "invasive" long-form census introduced sweeping new police powers guised as Bill C-51, all in the name of protecting us from the "threat" of terror when we're more likely to be killed by lightning than an extremist. It seems rather myopic and misguided to welcome additional police powers that thousands of academics and law professionals have called unconstitutional while being skeptical about a census meant to improve public policy and the lives of Canadians.
While there are still some issues I have with the new federal government — including for example its support of Bill C-51, the Trans Pacific Partnership, as well as its deafening silence regarding tax evaders and the billions being siphoned out of our economy every year — the long-form census is not one.
The clearer the census data's picture of our varied and diverse economic and social demographics, the better government will be able to focus its efforts on initiatives that will have the greatest potential to help our country grow.
It'll take time and work to restore clarity following the void in detailed data created by the former government's 2010 decision to scrap the long-form census, but its reintroduction is a step in the right direction.
Simon Ducatel is the editor of the Sundre Round Up.
