Inside Politics

UPDATED - CensusWatch: Suddenly, everyone wants to talk statistics with Tony Clement ...

by Kady O'Malley Posted: July 19, 2010 2:52 PM Last Updated: July 19, 2010 4:49 PM
Earlier today, an ad hoc coalition of bankers, economists, academics, pollsters and other data enthusiasts (including not one but two former clerks of the privy council) released the following request for a meeting with the minister to discuss their census-related concerns: Read the full text of the letter here.  

Meanwhile, as noted in Orders of the Day, Liberal industry critic Marc Garneau is going to try to put forward the following motion tomorrow, when the committee was already scheduled to meet on the closure of the Shell refinery in Montreal: 

Notice of Motion
Marc Garneau, M.P.
July 19, 2010

That the committee immediately begin a study on the Government of Canada`s decision to eliminate the long census and that the committee report its findings to the House of Commons.  

One potential procedural sticking point: He missed the 48 hour deadline to give notice of this particular motion, which means he'll have to seek unanimous consent to proceed, which may or may not be granted. Then again, since the committee clerk has confirmed receipt of a 106(4) request for a census-related meeting from Conservative MP Gord Brown -- who was, alas, apparently not aware of the requirement that it be signed by three other MPs -- it seems that the government members may well agree to waive the notice requirement, thus allowing the motion to go forward.

Finally, in case you missed it during your mid-afternoon census news roundup, former Industry Minister Maxime Bernier speaks out on his opposition to the census long form over at the Western Standard Shotgun blog. 

Sadly, it appears that those thousands of complaints that he claims that his office received during the 2006 census, will not, alas, be brought forward by the bagful at a future meeting: 

[W]hen I was Industry minister in 2006 during the previous census, several thousand email messages of complaint were sent to my MP office. (Some people have asked me to show proof of this. It was evidently part of an organized campaign, as my Parliament colleagues and I often sometimes receive vast numbers of messages on controversial issues. They are one way among others to gauge the level of public support or opposition to a decision. These messages were obviously not filed for future use by my staff and were deleted.) 


UPDATE: On the other hand, Conservative MP James Rajotte apparently takes his constituents' concerns over the census -- specifically, the proposal to eliminate the long form, not the allegedly intrusive nature of the survey itself -- a little more seriously than the then-industry minister did at the time. UWO researcher Michael Gibbons sent in the letter he received from Rajotte in response to his census-related correspondence: 

Dear Mr. Gibbons: 

 Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding changes to the Census long form questionnaire. I have received similar comments from a number of my constituents, and I do appreciate that many Canadians rely on the information produced by Statistics Canada for a number of uses. As such, I have contacted the Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, to express these concerns and to seek additional information on the change to the Census long form questionnaire. A copy of that letter is enclosed for your reference. Once my office receives a reply it will be brought to your attention. Thank you again for taking the time to contact me. Please do not hesitate to do so in the future should you have any further questions or concerns. 

 Yours truly, 
 James Rajotte, MP 

 Here's Rajotte's letter to the minister, which is dated today: Census

Tags: blackberry jungle, great census crisis of 2010, maxime bernier, mel cappe, so many former privy council clerks, tony clement to the white courtesy phone