Doors are closing on any chance of rescuing the 2011 census.
Industry Minister Tony Clement's obdurate testimony at Tuesday's Industry committee hearing, the hostility of Conservative MPs on the committee to witnesses defending the census, and the rapidly diminishing opportunities for compromise point to a government determined to eliminate the mandatory long-form version of the census, no matter what anyone says or pleads.
The government is resolved "to protect Canadians from the coercive and intrusive methods that had been used" to collect census data, Mr. Clement told the committee.
"If others have other ideas that can help animate this discussion, we're willing to listen to them," he added. But since the government hasn't listened to any of the scores of expert voices warning that making it voluntary to fill out the long form will corrupt the data, the prospects for preserving the census's integrity appear bleak.
We won't know any more, for sure, how many same-sex couples live among us, how many people are coping with physical or mental difficulties, how well people are speaking English or French, where people came from, how many Indians and other aboriginals there are, who has moved from where to where, who works at what and how much we get paid, who's paying child support, how the housing stock is fairing, and much more.
Mr. Clement's argument was a masterful defence of a false fact. Canadians, he said, were disturbed by the intrusive nature of the questions that traditionally go out to 20 per cent of Canadian households. To be forced to provide answers, on pain of punishment, violated their privacy rights.
Treasury Board President Stockwell Day was particularly emphatic in a commentary he posted Tuesday.
"Do you think it is right that you can threaten your neighbour with jail time if she doesn't tell you if she has mental issues or not?" he wrote. "Or who does what chores in the house? Or whether she is a Jew or not? Don't you find that one even a little bit chilling?"
But the National Statistics Council, whose 40 members are appointed by the government to advise Statistics Canada, asked the agency to provide data on all complaints registered either directly with Statscan, or referred to Statscan from MPs or any other source, concerning the last census in 2006. The total number of questions, complaints and concerns: 166. From a census that was sent to 12 million households.
NDP MP Charlie Angus was entirely right to call this a "manufactured crisis."
Ian McKinnon, chairman of the council, said he found Tuesday's Industry committee hearing "discouraging, because many of the participants seem to be entrenching themselves further."
The government can be expected to ignore the Industry committee's recommendation - passed by the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois in the teeth of Conservative opposition - to restore the mandatory census. There may be nothing that can be done. Unless…
The provincial and territorial leaders meet in Winnipeg next week. Provincial governments rely on census data to plan for anticipated growth and needs. The Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba governments are opposed to moving to a voluntary survey on the census. If the premiers could form a united front in defence of the traditional method of census-taking, the Conservatives in Ottawa might listen, rather than risk a federal-provincial confrontation on the issue.
The problem is that Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell are offering support, albeit lukewarm, for the Conservatives' approach. So creating consensus on the census will be a challenge for Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, who will chair the meeting.
Don Drummond, the former associate deputy finance minister who recently retired as chief economist of the Toronto Dominion bank, offered a particularly grim warning to the committee. The government, he said, may have so demonized the long-form census that "we create a sense that, you know what? You don't really have to fill this out."
In which case, the damage will have already been done.
John Ibbitson