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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
And may the gap in data go down in history as the "Stephen Harper knowledge gap"
No, their plan actually calls for making evidence based policy instead of simply deciding what they want the facts to be.
You know, collect information and use it to make decisions, instead of just making decisions based on ideology which has nothing to do with reality.
But, hey, go live in your mountain cabin and continue to believe this stupid crap.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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").
In a country where we have communist services (health, unemployment, etc), we need to have reliable data to be able to balance budgets and plan ahead.
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
Filling in a census form is not a loss of freedom. Yes I know king Herod held a census and then he killed babies but the two events did not have a causal relationship and census takers are not babykillers (ps. neither are abortion doctors).
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
> 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...
A census can only be mandatory. If its not mandatory, its a survey. Requiring residents to complete a census of their households is hardly onerous. At no time has anyone ever faced a fine or spent time in jail for failing to complete the census. There is a penalty, because under law you cannot have an action declared mandatory without a statement of penalty for failing to comply. A sign of good things to come. A return to rational, science and evidence based decision making. Not basing policy on unsupported beliefs and ideology.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
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
The right to refuse to fill in a census form is not an important freedom. I know there's a set of people who claim that there are no unimportant freedoms, but they are literally crazy.
You will note that it was and is also illegal in the US and other countries to refuse the census.
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."
While reinstating the long form census may not be big news, the scrapping of it certainly was.
As for it showing up on Slashdot, well it does involve a government shift from being ideologically opposed to the long form census to one that demands it in order to inform policy. (I'm not going to go as far as declaring that it was a Harper government conspiracy, but their attitude certainly made it look that way to left leaning individuals.) Many people are also opposed to the long form census because of privacy or anti-government attitudes. Both of these topics are running themes on Slashdot, even if they aren't purely technological in this case.
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?
This is not minor news. This was a major news item when the long-form was made optional, and it's been a plank of the Liberal platform to reinstate it.
Statistics Canada is a point of pride in Canada, albeit minor. That organization has been referenced internationally as an example of how to collect and provide information for detailed governance. When the long-form was made optional, the Harper government came out and said that an optional long-form would be nearly statistically identical in results, yet provide privacy to those who wish it. The head of statscan resigned over this.
See: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
So yeah, bringing it back is pretty recognized here.
.
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.'
Not a Canadian...
Would it be feasible to offer a $50 refundable tax credit for households participating in it?
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,
You know, collect information and use it to make decisions
...Or just this decade (because no doubt, we don't do that anymore, amirite?), Uzbeks or Syrian Christians or Rohingya or Bodos or Burmese Muslims... Do I really need to go on?
Unfortunately, world history has a looong list of countries using such information "to make decisions" about how best to deal with Jews or Cossacks or Indians or Armenians or Japanese or Kurds or Sikhs or... I could go on, but you probably get the point.
But, hey, go live in your mountain cabin and continue to believe this stupid crap.
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help" has counted as the most terrifying phrase in the English language for centuries for a damned good reason. This doesn't require a tinfoil hat or a manifesto or a cabin in the woods; it requires nothing more than opening any major newspaper, turning on the evening news, listening to the morning news during your commute to work, skimming the headlines at Google News - To know why giving the government anything more than they absolutely need to perform their core functions, counts as a bad idea.
Or put another way - If my race, income, or education level has any impact on how many roads I get in my county, the government has already fucked up so badly we need them gone ASAP.
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.
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).
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.
You know what got China to finally ditch Leftism after 40 years of trying really really hard to make it work? "Seek truth from facts." Seriously, that's how they justified stepping down from Leftism and into a system that made sense. Now Canada's heading the opposite way, while mouthing the same slogan. Sad...maybe the huge number of Chinese in Canada will recognize the pattern and stop it from happening, but I'm not optimistic.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
In the US it is only required to state the number of people in your house for purposes of allocating representatives to the House.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
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.
And yet the asshole who preceded him spent years trying to "fix" a criminal court/prison system that had all forms of crime rates decreasing for years.
Most of us want the government we have to do better with the money they are given from us. This means making rational, well-thought out, science supported decisions. To do this, one needs good data. Statistics Canada were world renowned experts in this, and yet the previous government decided they were irrelevant to their decision making.
The previous government made all sort of criminal justice policy decisions with very long term repercussions WITHOUT any evidence to support this "Canada is better with tougher sentences" position.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
"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. --
Evidence would be good. Compelling people by threat of force to give evidence is not.
And it degrades the quality of the evidence. "I'm from the government. How often do you use illegal drugs? If you don't answer you're going to jail. If you say yes it goes on a permanent record that the next administration might use against you. Ah, you never use them? Thanks for the valuable sociological data, citizen.
There are ways to gather sociological data that don't involve threatening people. Give me an anonymous survey, maybe a cash incentive for filling it out.
Don't know Canada's laws but the U.S. census gets nothing from me but a number; the feds are constitutionally empowered to conduct an enumeration for purposes of allocating representatives, not to forcibly pry into my life to evaluate the effectiveness of their policies.
If you don't think this is important, ask a Japanese-American who was put in a concentration camp in the 1940s. Once the state has your data, it is not private; it can always change the rules.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
"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."
Enough that the voting block representing them inside the Conservative party were Harper's primary motivation for the change. Many people I know (especially in Alberta) consider the long form census a violation of their right to privacy and they made a lot of noise about wanting it gone.
"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.
How about "you don't fill out the census, you don't get access to any of the government help programs such as health care, etc."
Can we have the US freedom in healthcare
You have it. It's not illegal to pay for private health care in Canada.
and certain US state's freedom from car insurance as well?
You are free to build your own highway on your own land and drive an uninsured car on it. But on public roads you must respect the rules.
If you are scared of how it can be misused, then you should call for the immediate disbanding of the armed forces, as those have been used by every single dictator in history to great effect.
You not understanding the important of a census doesn't make you look to knowledgeable of this subject.
Does that mean I don't have to pay taxes for them either, then? Because that could be a good trade off.
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
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
No, but they are assistants to concentration camp operators. That happened in the U.S. within living memory, it's not ancient history or something that can only happen in so-called "backwards" countries. It is established historical fact that census data can be used against people.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The same Conservatives who passed Bill 51 to spy on all citizens and directly gather the information? Yes they really must love their privacy to vote in the most anti-privacy government in Canadian history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
you should call for the immediate disbanding of the armed forces
Um, okay? Twist my arm, dude!
You not understanding the important of a census doesn't make you look to knowledgeable of this subject.
Hey now, the correct term is "African American Kettle", you insensitive bastard!
You've confused "usefulness" with "propriety" - You not understanding the role of government doesn't leave much room to lob criticism.
We deny our governments a great many "important" powers - Random searches and seizures; not needing to bother with all that burdensome proof of guilt stuff; not needing to put up with that pesky press or those damned people freely expressing their opinions about corruption; putting a soldier in every house; taking away people's guns (oh, right, Canada already did that one, but not like they then turned around and started stripping a defenseless population of other rights... Heeey, waitaminute!).
The convenience and utility of a given course of action do not automatically mean that we should allow that power to our governments under the guise of serving the people.
Fun fact, the left (NDP) lost this election. Another fun fact, the left were the only party promising to get rid of the government spying that the right introduced (Bill C51).
Another fun fact, left vs right is a different axis then authoritarian vs libertarian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
If you want your statistical data to be reliable, it has to be random and that means it cannot be a self-selecting group of responders.
The actual questions on the long form (which is sent to one in five households, randomly selected) are here: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs...
And no, most Canadians don't believe the government will do anything sinister with the information. We have a long tradition of democratic traditions and strong democratic institutions and those offer far more protection than refusing to answer a bunch of questions. If a government is out to get you, it won't matter whether or not it has census data.
You cited a law about private insurance. Gp spoke of private healthcare.
Does everybody in North America struggle under the delusion that these two radically different things are the same thing ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
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
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
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.
To "help marginalized and disadvantaged groups" is not the same as bringing about "equality".
The census is important.
What are the big complaints with all social science data?
They are nearly all subject to selection biases; many are self-selecting and/or opt-in, etc. And the sample sizes are usually quite small.
This is pretty much the only source of data that is taken from the population selected at random, is mandatory, and the sample size is massive. Its good data.
Its taken once every 5 years, but only affects around 20% of the population. My household has never even been selected. Growing up my parents received it only once that I know of. It is not a "huge burdern".
Very little of the data collected is qualifies as 'secret' or 'personal'. Here it is; see for yourself.
http://www12.statcan.ca/nhs-en...
Very little of it is objectionable; who lives in the house hold, how are they all related to each other, what is their level of education, where do they work/what do they do, where are they from.
The objections stem from:
Religion. Well there are no questions about religion on this one at all. None nada zero zip.
Sex: The only questions on sex are gender; and if you happen to self identify yourself as a same-sex spouse in the relationships. I suppose some transgendered individual who has decided to identify as neither male nor female might object to having to pick one. That's hardly a valid reason to argue against the census though.
Medical: There are some medical questions that some might object to. Difficulty seeing? hearing? walking? slow learning? long term health problem? These are extremely vague and generic; and are clearly useful for allocating and planning health services and very basic health trends.
Race / Language: There's some questions asking one to identify people's origin. (where they were born in canada or internationally, ethnicity, etc.) first nations status, immigration status, etc.
There are some legitimate historical cases where this last was used to persecute. But realistically, if we're going to round people up from country X for concentration camps, we'll be able manage that just fine without the census. Immigration records, and birth certificates to id them and their descendents, then tax forms and drivers licenses to find them will catch them anyway; throw in a neighborhood informant program.
Meanwhile the census data provides a good clear picture of the countries changing demographics that has a lot of legitimate uses.
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
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.
So gather data via surveys.
Disclosing private information to the state is onerous. Especially when that data may later be misused if a later government decides to change policy. (Japanese Americans who told the feds their details in the 1940s thought their data was protected by law. Then the feds changed the law. Haw haw.)
So it's not actually mandatory. So people who don't want to complete it can trash it with no consequences. So it's a volunatry survey. You support the state lying? Saying "we'll put you in jail if you don't fill out this paperwork!" and then not doing it?
Your position seems self-contradictory. "We have to compel people to give us their data or else we won't have accurate data![*] But if we put people in jail for not giving us their data people will get upset and overturn that law. So we can't really compel people to give us their data. Se we can't get accurate data. And that's a return to rational, science and evidence based decision making." ([*] I don'r accept that, I'm trying to summarize what I read your position to be.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
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
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!
During WWII, US Census data was used to identify Japanese citizens to be rounded up an placed in camps. We also no that it's been used since 9/11 to keep tabs on "suspicious individuals".
No one knows what the government will be like in the future, and questions that seem harmless now may end up being used to hang you later.
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
>But, hey, go live in your mountain cabin and continue to believe this stupid crap.
If that's what it takes to get away from psychopaths who want a gun pointed at me to tick some boxes on paper that make them feel better, it might not be a bad idea.
If you truly believe that census-takers are psychopaths who want to point a gun at you to fill in a form, then please, go ahead and live in a mountain cabin. For our protection.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
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...
Shiny pony is not aiming for a balanced budget to begin with...
So you steal from people, then have them comply by giving them back what was theirs to beginning with... [sic]
wait from a few white men to violate this act... their ass will all likely end up in jail.
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.
They're liberals, this "evidence based policy" is bs. What are they gonna legislate on ? The number of time I jerk every week ?
It would be ridiculous (IMO) to place someone in jail for 3 months for failing to complete the census. However, completing the census remains mandatory. If it is only a survey, then the data will be biased as many people will simple consider it too much of a bother to deal with.
If someone is so very dead set against filling in a census document with generalized information about their household, then the fine might actually be used. Given that no one has ever been fined (if the gov't comments concerning this are correct) then this speaks to rational discussions between officials and the delinquent household in question. By making it mandatory, you get better data (so say the statisticians who are the experts on this). If this means people complete the census under threat of punishment, it may decrease the number of delinquent households that officials will need to deal with to get the information completed.
Voluntary methods don't cut this kind of data collection.
Also bear in mind, we Canadians pay our taxes voluntarily at a very high level of compliance. Oh, there are penalties for not paying taxes, but you be amazed at the length the gov't will go through to have the proper amount paid without penalties. If you're a jerk about it, or have been intentionally hiding taxable income, then you get the stick. Most folks who'f delayed paying taxes (several years behind) or made honest mistakes can get the proper taxes paid up with no penalties. However, without the threat of actual, live penalties, you'd never get the level of compliance needed.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
The Canadian government could easily just tie the GST rebate check into the Census, which tended to be at least $50 - $75 every 4 months. If you were of legal age when the census was released, and you didn't file, you can't claim your GST rebates.
"Do you feel the muzzle of my gun on your neck ? Good. Now, take that pen, and fill this census. You have 1h."
Jedi ? Tsss "Hail Hydra !"
You keep using that word. I'm not sure that you know what it means. It's a loss of liberties or rights. It is not a loss of freedom. Failing to fill out the form and then getting arrested will result in a loss of freedom, however.
For the slow... I am free to kill you, I do not have the right to do so. I am free to rape, murder, pillage, and burn but I am not at liberty to do so.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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.
There are states where you can pay an uninsured driver fee in lieu of insurance. Sort of like how you can pay an uninsured healthcare fee if you don't have health insurance. The fee (well, according to SCOTUS it is a tax) is there to encourage you to pay, but considering the cost of auto insurance for some people, it is probably cheaper to pay the fee.
There are definitely people who don't like this. Obviously if your BMW just got trashed by someone's piece of shit and they are uninsured, it is your insurance company who has to pay, or you have to pay yourself. The POS drivers has no insurance to pay for their car, but they have a POS, so they probably could buy a new POS for the money they saved on not paying their car insurance.
"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.
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
Bill C-51 was supported by the Trudeau Liberal Party as well. Don't expect the new government to repeal and significant part of it.
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.
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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.
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So he selected half his cabinet to have intelligence below the median?
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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...
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Liberty is close in meaning to freedom, and both involve an absence of restrictions. Rights are a different concept dealing with what is proper.
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In the United States, the top bracket is 39.6% just on income tax, doesn't include social security, medicare/medicaid, excise taxes, import duties, alcohol and tobacco taxes, etc.. Business taxes also affect individuals indirectly.
A big scandal in the US is federal funding of Planned Parenthood, which performs, promotes, and profits from abortions.
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It takes a statist to claim that there's no fine or jailing, but there is a penalty. What modern penalties are there but fining and jailing? Beating? Public humiliation? Pillory? I think not.
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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.
You are laboring under the false assumption that a census has to be performed by mailing out forms for people to fill out.
Taxes are only voluntary if the government has no mechanism to force people to pay. To claim otherwise is dishonest.
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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.
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I don't and won't be surprised if Trudeau turns out to be Harper lite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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
Alas, their first decision is to use force to collect information. Upon what collected information is that decision based?
It's the underlying assumption that's being ignored. "We need gas chambers to solve the Jewish problem" depends on the false assumption that there's a Jewish problem.
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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
"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 ran on a very evidence based policy platform, and they have so far been honoring this. Not only have they reinstituted the long form but they made a new cabinet portfolio for Science, which is in charge of repairing our fundamental science and bringing evidence to people and government.
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
Even if he does, it would still be pretty big improvement.
Remember, less evil is better.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Almost anything would be an improvement on Harper, even the Conservatives seem to recognize this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
There is a mechanism to enforce punishment. It's called jail.
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 do not believe that filling out the form had to be mailed out. It could have a number of shapes and configurations, but the census would need to be signed as a legal document (for its veracity) which even in this day and age, requires a physical paper to be signed.
My apologies for using voluntary, in the discussion on taxes. What I meant to say, is that our taxes are paid with a very high level of compliance with a minimal amount of enforcement. It is most certainly not voluntary in the way of say charitable donations are voluntary.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands