Slashdot Mirror
Canada Reinstates Mandatory Census, To Delight of Social Scientists (sciencemag.org)
Eloking writes with news that the government of Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be reinstating the mandatory long-form census that the outgoing government had ended. Science reports: "The new Canadian government today announced it would restore the country's mandatory long-form census. 'Our plan for open and fair government starts today with restoring the long-form census,' said Navdeep Bains, minister of innovation, science and economic development, speaking in Ottawa alongside Jean-Yves Duclos, minister of families, children and social development. 'We're focused on good evidence-based policies.' Bains said that Statistics Canada would be able to meet the 2 May deadline to roll out the 2016 census, which is conducted every 5 years, and that there would be no additional costs to making it mandatory. He confirmed that residents who fail to fill out the census could face criminal prosecution, an issue that contributed to the decision by the Harper government to make the 2011 census voluntary."
Oh, yes - making policy and decisions based on evidence as opposed to ideology - wild indeed. I'm buckled in tightly with a 5 point harness; I'm ready for this ride.
Ian Ameline
not much left to say... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wgp-M6oGpI ...creation all ++++++++ we invented the minus (most of us) requirement?
I think he is referring to the legal requirement to tell the government everything they want to know. But maybe not. I don't really know what's on the Canadian long form. If it is like the US it is mostly bunch of stuff the government already has access to (like income), but are too lazy to go get, and a bunch of stupid stuff like how many bathrooms are in your house.
Once your country has been up and running for 200 years, there shouldn't be that many policies left to make.
A. buddy
B. guy
C. fwend
Pretty much.
It's also annoying as shit to fill out, being the typical longass-form government documents.
"Response rates are lower among certain groups, including immigrant populations, aboriginals, and low-income families."
The people too busy working and trying to make ends meet to spend a few hours reminding the government there's brown people with muslim names living at 2211 youfuckersalreadyknewallthis, Ottawa, appartment 404.
Pretty much this.
It's a pain in the ass to fill out, but I don't feel there's anything on there particularly intrusive. I find the questions about ancestry annoying because up until the first time I filled one out, I didn't have a clue what my distant roots were (I just don't care.. still don't).
It's mostly crap about income, employment, and yeah.. how many bathrooms/etc you have is in there for god knows what reason..
Even in Canada this in minor news, why is it front page on Slashdot?
The bathroom question is to know how many off us they can eventually piss off simultaneously
Nailed it!
I had to fill that bastard out once.. it just goes on and on. Some of the questions at least make sense, but when it wants you to count how many closets you have in your house and indicate if you're a descendent of Genghis Khan and how much time per week you spend doing the dishes it gets old fast.
Response rates are lower among certain groups, including immigrant populations, aboriginals, and low-income families.
Also folks who tend to be a bit more paranoid about the man, with or without good reason.
Well, UK is at 308 years (if you baseline on acts of union, which some might quibble about); thus demonstrating that statement to be erroneous.
I'm sure you'd be on here making the EXACT SAME argument if President Trump were forcing a mandatory long-form census on every American.
Yeah, I'm totally sure of that. No hint of hypocrisy whatsoever in your post there.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
If it's anything like the US long-form census, then most of the questions don't seem to have any bearing on policy. Who else lives in your house, where they used to live, the personal history of everyone in your house, down to everywhere they worked, exactly what type of work they did, how much land your house sits on, do you own a stove... It's all SPSS-fodder as far as I can tell.
Most of this stuff is already collected by the BLS, anyways.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Making it mandatory or else face criminal charges, is simply ridiculous.
It may be extreme, but how else do you encourage people to fill it in. Heck, this only happens every five years?
It is a pain to fill in, but if it means understanding the needs of the general population better, then I am for it. Sure they will be bad data, such as when people just make things up, but every statistical process has some error margin.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
the government already has access to (like income), but are too lazy to go get
I consider that a feature, not a bug. They should only use income statements for its intended purpose, nothing else. I believe we really should make it the law you can only collect info for a specific purpose, not I can use it for everything. Sadly, I doubt that is even possible. i.e. We collect it only to advertise to you would be perfectly fine no matter how narrow you try and make the law.
Pay for it. Seems far more fair than possibly jailing or fining someone for not filling it out.
So what happens if you don't know or have any information about some of your ancestors? Are you required to do whatever is necessary to track that information down, including hiring people to do so if necessary? Or is "I don't know" a good enough answer?
Suddenly wonder how many people list their pets..
You do get paid for it, with better service and support, more finely tuned to your community.
'Our plan for open and fair government starts today with restoring the long-form census,'
It's so entertaining that their plan for open government starts with requiring the citizens to provide data under threat of force.
Slashdot has traditionally considered the loss of freedom to be news.
Once your country has been up and running for 200 years, there shouldn't be that many policies left to make.
Riiiiight.. because once a policy has been set, or a decision has been made, everything else stays the same?
NOT... Change is the only constant. That also goes for countries, populations, governments, and the (political / economic / ...) environment they operate in. So it's good to be able to base today's decisions on today's facts & numbers (and future trends in those). Not to mention that since governments are always running behind on the facts, many rules are due for an overhaul anyway.
Since when has evidence mattered to socialists? If a couple hundred million dead hasn't convinced them I don't think a long form will.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
And may the gap in data go down in history as the "Stephen Harper knowledge gap"
Pay for it. Seems far more fair than possibly jailing or fining someone for not filling it out.
Did you think this through? You do realize that it amounts to the _same thing_ as fining people for NOT filling it out? As in the end, it is citizens paying themselves? Or where do you think the government's money comes from?
Personally I think it is perfectly fine to make this an offense with a fine. Living in a country and enjoying its benefits doesn't just come with _rights_, many people seem to forget it also comes with some duties and obligations. Obvious ones like 'don't fuck stuff up for other people'. While it is certainly up for debate how far these duties go - the majority of people in Canada just voted for this liberal government and not for the outgoing conservative government (which as the article states - made the census voluntary). Democracy might not be perfect and can't make everyone happy, but its the best system we have.
Yes, because government is all about doing things for groups of people instead of the country as a whole.
Let there be no part of your life secret so the government can do for you. Just stop them before they take that next step and decide all you can do.
Im sure the canadian form doesn't include a page signing over your power of attorney, first born, immortal soul and first option on all future offers of sexual congress to Trump Holdings however.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Pay for it.
Depending on height of reward, that would either achieve nothing, or skew results towards low-income households. Since those would be more likely to take the money (vs. richer people who'd say "f** that, I've got more important things to do").
What they should do is not criminalize it, but loudly and often let everyone know that future policy will be based on the results of they survey.
That way, when all the paranoid conservatives don't fill it out because the don't want the 'gubmint to know dey bidnez'. All policy will be based around gay muslims, who did fill out the forms.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
So, basically, you're against census even existing. Because the alternative is no census at all. A non-mandatory census is an absurdity.
There's nothing like $HOME
> The bathroom question is to know how many off us they can eventually piss off simultaneously
This is highly relevant, since if you go for a piss during TV commercial time, you're stealing Intellectual Property.
Someday, too many bathrooms will be flagged as a Circumvention Device under DMCA.
What? DMCA is just an USA thing? Just wait...
I guess you're mixing up our previous hard right conservative government who basically ended evidence-based decision making. Its our centralist government we now have that is returning to the use of science, technical experts, and read data to make policy.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
you are a criminal if you don't fill out a piece of paper.
yet this fucking asshole wants to "rehabilitate" repeat offenders of serious crimes instead of giving them longer jail terms.
trudeau is fucked in the head. so is his entire libtard party.
Not wanting to fill out an intrusive form like this for no good reason, divulging personal history and other sensitive information to the government, does not make you a "paranoid conservative". It is the prudent thing to do. Setting aside the fear of the government having such information on you; how much do you trust their information security? The census information would be a treasure trove for social engineers. Rather than saying "paranoid conservatives", you should say "people who aren't fucking idiots and weren't born yesterday". Political affiliation has nothing to do with desiring privacy.
I am Audience.
Not true, some things are set in stone. Two examples: the ten commandments, and the US constitution. Both come from God Himself and cannot be questioned.
>Oh, yes - making policy and decisions based on evidence as opposed to ideology - wild indeed.
Because the ideology of freedom is wrong if science doesn't get its data on what brand of toothpaste I prefer.
Ahh well, I'll just answer completely randomly like I do every one of those. Yeah, it's illegal. I also know the government has no way to prove what brand of hair conditioner I prefer or how often I use it, nor does the government give a shit apart from flexing it's bullshit anti-freedom muscles.
...for not providing the government with personal information about myself.
The US long form asks about mental/emotionial issues you may have, how much money you make and how, about your commute, how old your house is and what appliances you have
The long form is just being restored. It was started in 1971 so it's not new. From http://voices-voix.ca/en/facts...
"The mandatory long-form census was implemented in 1971. Since that time, the census has been comprised of two census forms: a short form and a long form. The short-census includes 8 questions and probes basic household composition information. The long-form census includes an additional 53 questions, probing respondents on a variety of demographic, social, and economic subjects, including things like citizenship and immigration status, ethnic origin, religion, place of birth of parents, education, income and housing, child care and support payments, labour market activities, and unpaid/household work. This data is used to plan public programs and projects such as equalization payments, Employment Insurance benefits, the Old Age Security program, and the Canada Pension Plan. The data also has an impact on public transit and transportation infrastructure, health-care infrastructure, social services, and education.
The short form is sent to 100% of Canadians and is mandatory. Until 2010, the long-form was mandatory, and was sent to 1 in 5 Canadians, with the data extrapolated to the rest of the population. While it was mandatory, the response rate for the long-form census was approximately 94%, producing data from a non-biased sample of the population and serving as one of the most important planning tools in Canada. Because this data is considered representative, data from the mandatory long-form census has been used as an “anchor”, reducing the risk of bias in other StatsCan surveys.
Because of its breadth and high-response rate, the mandatory long-form census has been one of the most reliable data sources in Canada. Reliable statistical information about all parts of society also supports government decisions to fight poverty and reduce the marginalization of disadvantaged groups. Measuring equality requires good, long-term and repeated data in order to determine if we are making progress. Without it, we simply don’t know."
Yes, because government is all about doing things for groups of people instead of the country as a whole.
It may surprise you, but yes, the whole is the sum of the parts, sometimes you do need to focus on a small portion in order to make everything work right.
That's why we don't build one long road across the whole country, for example.
Let there be no part of your life secret so the government can do for you. Just stop them before they take that next step and decide all you can do.
And then we have you resorting to absurdity. But let's try a reasoned approach. Can your doctor help you if they can't find out what's wrong? Can your car mechanic fix your car if they don't know what problems you are having? Can a car salesman sell you the right car if they don't know what your driving needs happen to be?
Sure, all of these people can be wrong, confused, and misled, but that doesn't mean them having any information is bad.
But no, I suspect you're stuck on your strawman rhetoric, and unable to get past that bit of hysteria. It'd be one thing if I thought you could stick to specific examples, then we might come to an agreement of some kind, but the way you jumped right to what you did say, tends to cast doubt on the chance of a reasoned discussion.
Do you want me to say that there are extremes we should avoid going to? Ok, now can you say that there is a purpose to an informed government, and that a census is not inherently and absolutely bad?
A sample of the actual 61-question census can be found here:
http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imd...
It's 40 pages of fill in the square with nitpicky crap like "so what DID you do at your job as a COMPUTER EN-GINEER." That's 40 pages per person. No wonder Canadians hate it.
I don't have particular objections to the long form census, especially as I doubt they will come after you if you don't fill out all the questions, or answer erroneously (although considering the data is used for planning though this wouldn't necessarily seem to be in ones best interest).
However, it makes me worry that this is being presented as 'open and fair government'. I was really hoping Trudeau's campaign for 'real change' would include dropping the political blowing smoke up asses and not making every decision part of a heroic effort for 'open and fair government.'
Yes, throwing people in prison for not filling out your BS questionnaire is so much better.
the government already has access to (like income), but are too lazy to go get
In Canada that is protected information. Only the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) can access it. There are serious consequences for folks leaking that kind of info here.
Trolling is a art,
Not true, some things are set in stone. Two examples: the ten commandments, and the US constitution. Both come from God Himself and cannot be questioned.
So those 27 amendments to the constitution are... what, exactly?
I don't know about how Canada's left works, but if they're anything like the left in Britain, their evidence based policy strategy revolved around working out how to force the data into saying it should tax more and borrow more to spend on buying votes ( such as increasing the number of people employed by the public sector by one million over 13 years ).
Every side does evidence based policy, to an extent. Every side also finds evidence it likes in order to pursue the policies which are aligned with their political views.
For me it was illegal* to know that information on the last census. The wife just filled out things randomly for me.
* - In Ontario, at the time, anyone adopted was not allowed access to any birth history. The only exception is for deadly medical issues, and that is only because Ontario was so tight fisted 20 years before this that they let an adopted person die rather than hand over the info. The resulting lawsuit opened the door a crack. Things have improved slightly now, but it is still illegal if the birth parent signed forms to tell you to get fucked.
The UK one is here: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guid...
Broadly, it's
- who lives here, and how are they related?
- how big is the house, and is it owned or rented?
- what is your age, ethnicity, education, origin, religion?
- are you healthy, do you have a job and what kind?
- how do you travel to work?
They don't ask for income, or any identity numbers.
Knowing how many bathrooms are in the house is useful for planning water usage, and tracking poverty or overcrowding (no / shared bathroom).
It's probably just an administrative fine. The "criminal charges" part is overly dramatic drama, out of place where the summers are furious and winters a silent death.
So are you ok with putting someone in jail or forcing them to pay for not filling out a census form? Of course it would be abused to pay for it, however jailing or fining people for not filling it out is a far worse thing for the government to do. Personally I would prefer it not being mandatory.
I'm so glad you like filling out census forms. I hope you get the 20 page version.
As a little bonus I noticed elsewhere in the comments the sample census:
http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb-bmdi/pub/instrument/3901_Q2_V3-eng.pdf
It requires someone in my situation lie on 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25.
Take your tinfoil hats off already. I work for a civic agency where my primary role is to provide the decision makers with the right data necessary to make informed decisions. We, along with many other branches that serve the community, were severely handcuffed when Harper removed the long form and made the short form voluntary. The data is often used to help identify where focus and resources are best placed so that the taxpayers we serve get the most bang for their buck. Believe it or not, many public servants do understand who pays the bills.
The onerous nature of the questions lead to massive violations of privacy. NO citizen of any country should ever be compelled by force of law to reveal the private information of their lives. The government has ZERO right to know anything beyond the fact that I am alive and paying my taxes per the law. They don't need to know my skin color, my religion, what I do for a living, etc, etc.
The information they want to gather will only lead to the further degradation of the privacy of the citizens.
Bearded Dragon
When people say data should only be used for the purpose it is collected for and seem to think that if someone wants to use it for an unintended purpose it should be collected again resulting in what I think is pointless duplication, I wonder if they're open to a law getting passed that would make a new purpose for its use part of the intended purpose.
"making policy and decisions based on evidence"
Imagine how much better "policy and decisions" they could make if they could put your whole life under the microscope! Please send all your passwords to the police right away.
A non-mandatory census is an absurdity.
It's non-cens!
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
"if you can't protect it, don't collect it"
no government OR business has proven to us that they can safeguard our info. therefore, I will never willingly give info to any 'authority' that I don't have to, under pain of arrest or actual physical pain.
I could care less what 'good uses' they list. the bad overweighs the good. I safeguard my personal info as best I can and since we get an almost weekly news item about this or that company having a network or computer break-in, the industries have not proven that they can protect the info well enough.
until they can protect it, they do not deserve to collect it.
burn that into your memories, guys. IF YOU CAN'T PROTECT IT, DON'T COLLECT IT!
these days, those are really important concepts to internalize. teach that phrase to others and maybe, eventually, people will think before they hand over info 'just because'.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Since when has evidence mattered to socialists?
You'd be surprised.
"supports government decisions to fight poverty and reduce the marginalization of disadvantaged groups. Measuring equality requires good, long-term and repeated data in order to determine if we are making progress. Without it, we simply donâ(TM)t know"
Equality (in this sort of sense) is not a legitimate governmental purpose.
As a Canadian who isn't forced to vote, why the hell should i be forced to *randomly* fill out a 2 hour multiple choice list?
Don't have to vote
Do have to fill out a bullshit questionnaire?
No thanks.
Trudeau is doing exactly what Soros is telling him to do. That whole thing about consulting with stakeholders instead of making unilateral decisions has already demonstrated itself to be a lie.
Most human research is voluntary. You think most published psychological and sociological studies are absurd? You think psychologists should be able to make participation in their studies mandatory?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That's why we don't build one long road across the whole country, for example.
Who's "we", kemosabe?
Can your doctor help you if they can't find out what's wrong? Can your car mechanic fix your car if they don't know what problems you are having? Can a car salesman sell you the right car if they don't know what your driving needs happen to be?
People choose to give these entities the information they do. When government comes knocking, their "requests" are backed with guns and violence.
The only question people should be asking is: Do you trust this government and future governments with the data you are giving them. If the answer is no, then do not give it.
Just a backgrounder ...
For the past 9+ years in Canada, we had a Conservative government (right wing ideologues).
They wanted to eliminate inconvenient truths that are against their ideologies, so they started a war on data and a war on science.
Here is a recent TV program explaining how despicable this is:
War on Data
War on Science
The new liberal government promised evidence based policies. One thing they promised is to reinstate the long form census which the Conservatives axed on false premises back in 2010.
So this is just undoing the damage done by right wingers ...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
The NDP (our Socialist Party) did not win this election, which is a shame as they're the most Libertarian Canadian political party.
The Liberals are the Centrist Party. Fun fact, they balanced the budget 8 times in a row before the Conservatives ran up the biggest deficit in Canadian history and finally managed to balance the budget for the election. The Liberals were also the only party this election who ran on a platform of deficit spending to fix infrastructure, much like a household will borrow money if needed to fix the roof.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The number of bathrooms is an indicator of affluence and can be used to weigh the information about income, which is often not answered truthfully.
That would alter the sample set. ie. the Census data may not include data from wealthier Canadians who can afford to pay the fine.
By threatening jail time, they minimize the impact to the Census data, as everyone (other than lawyers with too much time on their hands) wants to avoid jail.
That's my 2 cents, anyway. I'm not a statistician.
Who's "we", kemosabe?
There's more than one road in Canada, and that one also had its decision making process as part of it.
But I'm sure you realized that.
People choose to give these entities the information they do.
Not always, no, there are times where you can be forced to talk in the case of medical needs.
When government comes knocking, their "requests" are backed with guns and violence.
Yes, if you don't like that, you'll want to go to a far more fundamental level than the census.
The only question people should be asking is: Do you trust this government and future governments with the data you are giving them. If the answer is no, then do not give it.
I prefer to ask more questions like "If you don't trust your government, why do you have it around?" and "If you don't inform your government, how can it be expected to serve you?" than just one.
Maybe I'm weird that way.
Unless you're republicans acting out of fear as conservatives do (fear has seriously been proven the driving emotion of conservatism) Then it's ok to hand over all your rights to the government, except the ones you make up about being exempt from laws due to your situational religious beliefs.
Was it a science based decision to force his cabinet to be 50% male and 50% female? Should decisions as to who runs a department of the government be based on merit not the chromosomal lottery?
Not to say some of the ministers of either sex weren't the best person for the job but whenever you arbitrarily apply some external criteria to your hiring practices you're pretty much guaranteeing the best candidate won't always win.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
https://www.trudeaumetre.ca/
If you're Canadian or interested in Canadian politics, please have a look.
The liberals helped balance their books like most politicians balance their books, by cheating.
They made changes to employment insurance requirements which resulted in fewer eligible people. While not necessarily a bad thing based on circumstances, they failed to then adjust the EI payment rates to reflect the new number and instead kept it artificially high to collect more money than following the federal formula would normally allow.
They also made significant cuts to the transfer payments to the provinces, offloading Federal expenses to the various provincial governments. In your household anology, this would be like a slumlord putting in new flooring and an in ground pool at his house while letting all his tenant buildings going to ruins and pointing at his beautiful house to prove how great a real estate mogul he is.
The also greatly benefited by the implementation of the GST under the previous government, the abolishment of which was a major party platform that the Liberals ran on. Surprising no one with a functioning brain cell, the Liberals decided NOT to get rid of the GST once in power.
In general, neither the Conservatives or Liberals have been great at putting forward useful budgets that actually work, the liberals were just a bit better at making theirs look good on paper.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
What situation would require you to lie about your ethnicity and ancestry?
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
Ah slashdot. A community that generally promotes science and progress, and to a lesser extent; data collection and statistics.
Unless of course, it involves taking up to 3 HOURS of my time once every 5 years or so. In which case, fuck that, my time is valuable!
You are overlooking the obvious truth that the views of 50 or so wealthy, white, male, slave owners on how to structure and govern a democracy, as are pertinent and practical today as during the industrial revolution / romantic era when they were conceived.
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
If it is like the US it is mostly bunch of stuff the government already has access to (like income), but are too lazy to go get, and a bunch of stupid stuff like how many bathrooms are in your house.
Another perspective: it's like getting a position fix after dead-reckoning for a while.
In navigation, one would get a fix from a sextant or a landmark, but if it was cloudy for a while that is no longer possible, so you switch to taking your last fix and looking how fast you've travelled and for how long. You use the fix and the delta. But there's bound to be an error and you won't know how big/small until another fix. See also inertial navigation systems.
Yes, the government has various statistics as they record births and deaths and people moving, but that's a delta against a previously known value. There's an error to that delta and you can estimate it, but it's nice to get a new "known value" so see what your drift is and then start using deltas again.
Equality (in this sort of sense) is not a legitimate governmental purpose.
Maybe not in the US. But in Canada, the purpose of a government is whatever Canadians decide it should be, and if most of us think the government should help marginalized and disadvantaged groups, then that is by definition a legitimate governmental purpose.
Was it a science based decision to force his cabinet to be 50% male and 50% female?
Trudeau wanted a cabinet that reflected Canadian society. Whether or not you think that's a good thing can be argued, I suppose, but it's not unreasonable to try to make your government representative of the wider society.
I don't know about how Canada's left works[...]
And yet you proceed to give your uninformed opinion anyway.
how much do you trust their information security?
Very much. I've had professional dealings with Statistics Canada in the past and their computer security is very, very impressive. I would say the census data is amongst the best-protected data in Canada, if not North America.
Interestingly all the gov't is entitled to by law is the number of persons and animals in the home. Criminal prosecution for not filling out the census is probably criminal in itself.
To "help marginalized and disadvantaged groups" is not the same as bringing about "equality".
It's so strange, funny and absurd that a corporation believes they feel they have the right
to make their questionnaire mandatory. I don't remember at birth, or since then, that I
agreed to this contract to fill in some form about my life. To threaten me with jail if I
don't, sounds like extortion to me.
it doesn't say "bringing about equality". It says "measuring equality".
Jeremy
"equality" is an irrelevant measure when trying to improve the situation of the poor. It would be an inappropriate and in any case unachievable goal. What matters is not how far away person X and Y are. What matters is that person X is not starving to death etc.
Funny how the "meritocracy" tends to disproportionately favor upper-income white males. Taller than average ones, at that. Sometimes you need what appears to be an unfair policy to counter-act unconcious bias.
Compared to the last cabinet, the minister of science is now actually a scientist. The minister of defense is actually a soldier, and the minister of transportation is a friggin' astronaut. I don't see much to complain about.
Jeremy
Not anymore. Bill C-51 helpfully included more information sharing between departments. And, unfortunately, everyone is a potential terrorist, so CSIS must individually vet every one of us and imprison everyone who fails the process.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Socialist != Social Democrat. The NDP is the latter.
Good post otherwise. Carry on.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Each cabinet has had people who spent a life outside of politics working in related fields as well as people who have no relation to the department they now head (like say and astronaut and Transport - unless you think we'll start sending things cross country strapped to booster rockets). It was true of Harper's cabinets and is equally true of Trudeau's.
It is funny you mention the Science Minister since it was the last Liberal government who removed that position from cabinet and Harper who brought it back.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
...of Harper's government. He systematically crippled data-collection in Canada because facts and evidence don't play well with his ideological motives.
To see just how depressingly bad things got under Harper, have a read of this report done by MacClean's: http://www.macleans.ca/news/ca...
Ahem. Cough.
When you axe the mandatory census, and start losing track of things like the population of towns, it's impossible to allocate funding on any basis other than throwing a handful of coins onto a large map of the country, and allocating based on what landed where.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
That's one opinion, sure. It's not the only possible one. Perhaps Canadians are more interested in helping the unfortunate through government means than US citizens.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
In other news 75% of Canadians list Jedi as their religion and 65% list wookie as their ethnicity.
The electorate decides who best represents their views and while ~50% of the population are women only 26% of the MPs elected were, meaning that a significant portion of women in the country are just fine with a man representing them, at least in terms of the federal government.
For most people in established democracies, gender is simply not the primary defining condition as to how they want their government managed. They want competent representative that share at least some of their views and if that happens to be a man or a women, so be it. That's not to say that you might not relate more to a person because of shared life experiences that are gender specific (they might be the mother of small children like you) and if that's the determining factor in deciding your vote, that's fine, but once elected it's a poor reason for the person in charge to give someone the reigns of a multibillion dollar branch of government.
Women are representative enough in the all industries that simply choosing good people from your list of elected officials you should get a mix of both sexes. Artificial and unrelated criteria just guarantees you're not going to always get the best person for the job.
And yes, several countries have a higher female representative percentage than Canada but many of them had to rig their systems to force that to occur.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Some things are civic duties. I got summoned for jury duty starting the end of the month, for example. As far as the census goes, if we pay everybody in the country $10 to fill out census forms, we're either going to have to raise taxes by an average of $10 or add $3G to the deficit.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Ahem. Cough.
That all the roads in Canada then?
When you axe the mandatory census, and start losing track of things like the population of towns, it's impossible to allocate funding on any basis other than throwing a handful of coins onto a large map of the country, and allocating based on what landed where.
You could also keep it all for yourself.
especially when the data are being processed by... lockeed martin...
I don't see much asians, blacks, or arabs in that government ...
Do you realize there is a real Libertarian party in Canada ? The NDP is parsecs away from libertarianism...
if liberal MSM can draw national trend by asking a few hundreds people, then you can do the exact same by having 70% of return rate on a non-mandatory census.
No, there is potential jail time.
“If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” -- Samuel Adams
Do you know who this was direct at? ... Canadians! Americans fought for freedom, Canada is what was left over of the people that enjoyed servitude.
In Canada you can't decline to answer questions at the border when returning to Canada even if you are a Canadian citizen, and you must hand over the password to your phone/computer, in both cases even if there are no grounds for suspicion. In the U.S. at the border you can decline to answer questions and not give up your password.
Censuses have a monstrous track record, yet here the sheep are applauding as the government puts a gun to people's heads and violates their privacy (while meanwhile putting on political theater about defending your privacy).
Being a white male.
I have sympathy with that duplication, even while being very well aware of the waste entailed.
Otherwise, what keeps the cops from getting medical related information about you? If you have government health care, there's a trove of information about you out there.
Yes, you can set up specific rules about that sort of thing, but its better that the default case be that you cannot share, than have the default case that you can share.
Please don't even joke about that. I'd vote for Bernie Sanders before I voted for Trump. Both are about as useless, but Trump is actively dangerous. We'd probably survive Bernie and do all right with some good gridlock.
What happened in the election is that Canada went from
A people having a governement to
A governement having a people
>A non-mandatory census is an absurdity.
It isn't an absurdity because you declare it so.
"Being Jewish in 1935 Berlin"?
I was going to write a paragraph of answers to your idiotic question, but this thread needed to be Godwin'd anyway.
Well you have to actually get elected to make cabinet. And there aren't all that many arabs or blacks in Canada.
Canadian.
That's just false. The Chrétien Liberal Party *was* a centrist party, but all the Liberal Party under all subsequent leaders has been an eco-leftist party. A particular spectacle in the recent election was that the Liberal Party was solidly to the left of the NDP.
True, but the other 2 main parties are mega-parsecs away from libertarian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Well up to 2011, they branded themselves as socialist. Of course there are many types of socialist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
"Legitimate governmental purpose" does not change across a border, does not change with a vote, does not change with the opinions of the populace. It consists of protecting the lives and property of its citizens, no more, no less.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Of the 55 delegates to the convention which wrote the U.S. Constitution, a minority were slaveholders. Alexander Hamilton was born out of wedlock and the race of his parentage cannot be determined with certainty. Not all of them were wealthy.
1770 is not like today. Free libraries were almost unknown; most households had few books other than a Bible. The time and resources to study historical forms of government, their advantages and disadvantages, were available to few and utilized by even fewer. The people most qualified to design a new government were those who did it.
Consider the alternative you apparently favor: that government should be designed by the poor, ignorant, jealous, and unsuccessful. Such a government, in the unlikely event that its constitution had been ratified, would have been an ignominious failure.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
So he selected half his cabinet to have intelligence below the median?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Canada Reinstates Mandatory Census, To Delight of Data Miners
Just on gun control, the CPC is way closer to libertarian than the NDP... Not to mention the CPC did target a balanced budget, but ended up with *surplus*. The NDP are pro-unions, pro-nanny-state. I have no idea why you believe they are close to libertarians...
That's the kind of attitude that contributes to the us versus them mentality. I'm not sure how the police can use that information against you, but them having that information could potentially land you in prison when you wouldn't be otherwise or encourage them to use more force, but it could also lead to them getting a person medical treatment when they are acting strange due to a medical problem. We really need to work on getting the government to act in a trustworthy manner, and I don't have all the answers on where to begin.
That is a very common logical fallacy.
Most people would be very unhappy if when they rented a car, they were presented with a pile of parts.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Was it a science based decision to force his cabinet to be 50% male and 50% female?
The scientific hypothesis is that splitting his cabinet along gender lines will help him get voted in again in 4 years. Politicians often have getting voted in again as their prime motivation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Not going to argue with you, but still consider the Liberals better then the Conservatives. Even actually considered voting for them this time around and would have if there was only 2 choices on the ballot. I still ended up voting for the independent as I'd actually talked to him and liked what I heard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I've had enough bullets fly by my head that I actually think that any idiot should not be allowed to own a gun though I disagree with the CPC idea of gun control where someone can go to jail for a minimum of 3 years by accidentally leaving their gun with their wife.
I also don't like the idea of having a surplus exactly equal to what was earmarked for the veterans and then not spent, but I guess the Conservatives consider the veterans to be welfare queens with their stories of post traumatic stress syndrome.
Personally liberties such as being able to not be spied on by the government and being able to use the internet without the government knowing everything I do online and not having to shave because the government decided I should show my face to be more important then whether people are allowed to organize for their collective good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
http://www.politicalcompass.or.... It wont be long before Trudeau's handlers rein him in. The Liberals will get more pipelines built then the Conservatives ever did, mostly by not being confrontational.
Note also that the Liberals voted right along with the Conservatives for Bill C51 and have only promised minor tweaks to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Unless there are properties that strongly correlate with voluntarily submitting a long-form census.
"Legitimate governmental purpose" does not change across a border, does not change with a vote, does not change with the opinions of the populace. It consists of protecting the lives and property of its citizens, no more, no less.
That's a libertarian opinion. It might surprise you that most people don't agree with that opinion.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Not wanting to fill out an intrusive form like this for no good reason, divulging personal history and other sensitive information to the government, does not make you a "paranoid conservative". It is the prudent thing to do. Setting aside the fear of the government having such information on you; how much do you trust their information security? The census information would be a treasure trove for social engineers. Rather than saying "paranoid conservatives", you should say "people who aren't fucking idiots and weren't born yesterday". Political affiliation has nothing to do with desiring privacy.
Oh noez. Teh hackers will know how many bathrooms are in ma house!
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Was it a science based decision to force his cabinet to be 50% male and 50% female? Should decisions as to who runs a department of the government be based on merit not the chromosomal lottery?
Funny that you should care.
Not to say some of the ministers of either sex weren't the best person for the job but whenever you arbitrarily apply some external criteria to your hiring practices you're pretty much guaranteeing the best candidate won't always win.
Have you looked at previous cabinets? This may be the most merit based cabinet in decades. Harper's cabinet (the previous prime minister) was filled with cronies and yes men. Under his leadership, you were more likely to get appointed to cabinet as payback for a favour than any merit based evaluation and very few people cared (few enough that over 10 years, I never heard a single person complain about the way cabinet ministers are appointed). It was so bad that Harper was shuffling his incompetent yes men from one position to the other to try and hide how much they were bungling the job.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
The liberals helped balance their books like most politicians balance their books, by cheating.
You misspelled conservatives in that sentence. The Liberals actually balanced the books, the conservatives balanced the budget with a one-time asset sale. They didn't care about next year, because they had an election to win this year.
They made changes to employment insurance requirements which resulted in fewer eligible people. While not necessarily a bad thing based on circumstances, they failed to then adjust the EI payment rates to reflect the new number and instead kept it artificially high to collect more money than following the federal formula would normally allow. They also made significant cuts to the transfer payments to the provinces, offloading Federal expenses to the various provincial governments. In your household anology, this would be like a slumlord putting in new flooring and an in ground pool at his house while letting all his tenant buildings going to ruins and pointing at his beautiful house to prove how great a real estate mogul he is.
So are you complaining that the Liberals made the hard choices to balance the budget into balance? Or are you complaining they didn't make the choices you wanted them to make to balance the budget?
The also greatly benefited by the implementation of the GST under the previous government, the abolishment of which was a major party platform that the Liberals ran on. Surprising no one with a functioning brain cell, the Liberals decided NOT to get rid of the GST once in power.
To be fair, the Liberal finance minister really, really wanted to cancel it. He apparently exploded and literally threw furniture at his staff when they told him that he couldn't get rid of it, if ever wanted to balance the budget. He eventually calmed down and accepted it, but sometimes reality doesn't allow us to do what we want to do.
In general, neither the Conservatives or Liberals have been great at putting forward useful budgets that actually work, the liberals were just a bit better at making theirs look good on paper.
It's a bit more than that. The Liberals paid off $110 billion of Canada's debt, the Conservatives added $150 billion to Canada's deb. If you really think that a $260 billion difference in results is "just a bit better at making theirs look good on paper" then you need to have your head examined.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
That's just false. The Chrétien Liberal Party *was* a centrist party, but all the Liberal Party under all subsequent leaders has been an eco-leftist party. A particular spectacle in the recent election was that the Liberal Party was solidly to the left of the NDP.
Strangely enough the Liberals were to the left of the NDP on some issues and to the right of the conservatives on others.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
That is a very common logical fallacy.
Why? In what way?
Most people would be very unhappy if when they rented a car, they were presented with a pile of parts.
And most people, when they take their car into to be fixed, would be very unhappy if they were told they had to get a new car in the entirety.
So what's your point, huh, or did you just miss mine?
If the choice is between a mandatory census and no census at all then I'd opt for the latter without hesitation.
As a social scientist with a shred of dignity that does not view the government as god on earth, I'm not so much delighted as furious.
his final solution. For the sake of science.
White coat IBM-ers helped.
The people most qualified to design a new government were those who did it.
And yet they failed in numerous aspects, including the lack of a clear chain of succession, a problem they should have known enough to address.
Consider the alternative you apparently favor: that government should be designed by the poor, ignorant, jealous, and unsuccessful.
Consider the real argument you're ignoring as you stuff your strawman. Even leaving aside the existences of numerous negative character traits among the Founding Fathers, including lechery, avarice, jealous, ignorance and more, their decisions made at the time were flawed enough, now that the world has changed, there is a lot that is even more obviously wrong, flawed, improperly applied, or simply outmoded.
Census form should be one question: How many people live at this address. Feds justify the too many questins by telling us the answers determine how funds are distributed back to us. We should ask: Why are the feds taking our money to begin with.
I will return to the census with every question answered in a way to deliver as less government as possible, I will answer every question strategically. Social scientists are not really scientists.
The Trudeau government has so much fixing to do, it's hard to even comprehend.