In 2003 our American friends thought they would experiment with a voluntary census instead of a mandatory one. The result was added expense and less reliable data. This costly blunder was quickly abandoned. Nobody wanted unreliable information at exorbitant prices.
Until now, that is. These days some people actually thrive on misinformation.
Enter Prime Minister Harper and his bold, new initiative with the Canadian census. He is taking our country in a completely different direction with something I like to call arbitrary democracy. Important government decisions will now be made for no particular reason at all.
Filling out the census should be optional according to the PM. All the valuable information routinely used by Canadians to make important decisions will become unreliable, at best. We will have to depend on the arbitrary will of Stephen Harper to make those decisions for us. He alone will decide what’s best.
It looks like our country, strong and free, is being governed and run according to the whims, urges and other bodily functions of the prime minister. If he gets his way, policy decisions will no longer be based on accurate numbers or informed opinions. In fact, they won’t even be available.
In the meantime Mr. Harper will continue to make his choices based on the same principle he has always followed, “I’ve already made up my mind; don’t confuse me with the facts.”
During a recent, very fanciful bout of whimsy he came up with the notion of fiddling around with Statistics Canada. Somehow he devised a way to discredit any StatsCan statistics he and his party don’t care for.
In the process he has already succeeded in tarnishing the reputation of Statistics Canada, caused the resignation of its chief statistician and he also managed to make fall guy Tony Clement look like an idiot. Not bad for just one ill-informed decision.
Mr. Harper thinks we should copy the failed American voluntary model. He already knows what will happen. Fewer people will answer the census, it will be more expensive and the information gathered will be unreliable. You have to wonder about his motivation. The former head of the U.S. Census Bureau calls this decision “political stupidity.”
The PM claims to be flooded with complaints about invasions of privacy by outraged Canadians who are forced to complete the census or face stiff penalties.
However, Canada’s privacy commissioner says in the past decade there have been a total of three complaints about any aspect of the census, one in 2001 and two in 2006. I don’t think a flood means what Mr. Harper thinks it means.
The task of selling this unsuccessful strategy has been given to poor Tony Clement who, lately, resembles a deer caught in the headlights. None of the provinces support the decision and thousands of groups who use StatsCan statistics to apply for funding are scratching their heads.
When asked if he had any way of measuring the support for this new measure Mr. Clement answered, “I am doing that through the Twitterverse as best I can.”
Obviously you don’t have to be a twit to Twitter, but it seems to help.
I’m not a suspicious guy by nature but given the Conservatives’ past performance you have to wonder what they’re up to this time. Why would they even consider measures that would prevent them from gathering necessary information? I guess when it comes to Conservative party ideology, ignorance is bliss.
This could pave the way for spending cuts on all sorts of unnecessary luxuries like libraries or schools or charities. The rationale is simple. We can’t give more money to education or the less fortunate because we just won’t have the numbers to support it once StatsCan is no longer reliable.
Then, because we spend so much money to fund Statistics Canada we can use the same unreliable statistics to justify some other programs we like better like Afghanistan or perhaps deep sea drilling off the East Coast. The logic is brilliant. Twisted, but brilliant.
This new voluntary component to our democracy is troubling but maybe we should take it even further. How about voluntary parking tickets or voluntary license fees or perhaps even the ultimate choice – voluntary taxes. You know, just pay what you think is fair. Now there’s something we would all like to volunteer for.
Until now, that is. These days some people actually thrive on misinformation.
Enter Prime Minister Harper and his bold, new initiative with the Canadian census. He is taking our country in a completely different direction with something I like to call arbitrary democracy. Important government decisions will now be made for no particular reason at all.
Filling out the census should be optional according to the PM. All the valuable information routinely used by Canadians to make important decisions will become unreliable, at best. We will have to depend on the arbitrary will of Stephen Harper to make those decisions for us. He alone will decide what’s best.
It looks like our country, strong and free, is being governed and run according to the whims, urges and other bodily functions of the prime minister. If he gets his way, policy decisions will no longer be based on accurate numbers or informed opinions. In fact, they won’t even be available.
In the meantime Mr. Harper will continue to make his choices based on the same principle he has always followed, “I’ve already made up my mind; don’t confuse me with the facts.”
During a recent, very fanciful bout of whimsy he came up with the notion of fiddling around with Statistics Canada. Somehow he devised a way to discredit any StatsCan statistics he and his party don’t care for.
In the process he has already succeeded in tarnishing the reputation of Statistics Canada, caused the resignation of its chief statistician and he also managed to make fall guy Tony Clement look like an idiot. Not bad for just one ill-informed decision.
Mr. Harper thinks we should copy the failed American voluntary model. He already knows what will happen. Fewer people will answer the census, it will be more expensive and the information gathered will be unreliable. You have to wonder about his motivation. The former head of the U.S. Census Bureau calls this decision “political stupidity.”
The PM claims to be flooded with complaints about invasions of privacy by outraged Canadians who are forced to complete the census or face stiff penalties.
However, Canada’s privacy commissioner says in the past decade there have been a total of three complaints about any aspect of the census, one in 2001 and two in 2006. I don’t think a flood means what Mr. Harper thinks it means.
The task of selling this unsuccessful strategy has been given to poor Tony Clement who, lately, resembles a deer caught in the headlights. None of the provinces support the decision and thousands of groups who use StatsCan statistics to apply for funding are scratching their heads.
When asked if he had any way of measuring the support for this new measure Mr. Clement answered, “I am doing that through the Twitterverse as best I can.”
Obviously you don’t have to be a twit to Twitter, but it seems to help.
I’m not a suspicious guy by nature but given the Conservatives’ past performance you have to wonder what they’re up to this time. Why would they even consider measures that would prevent them from gathering necessary information? I guess when it comes to Conservative party ideology, ignorance is bliss.
This could pave the way for spending cuts on all sorts of unnecessary luxuries like libraries or schools or charities. The rationale is simple. We can’t give more money to education or the less fortunate because we just won’t have the numbers to support it once StatsCan is no longer reliable.
Then, because we spend so much money to fund Statistics Canada we can use the same unreliable statistics to justify some other programs we like better like Afghanistan or perhaps deep sea drilling off the East Coast. The logic is brilliant. Twisted, but brilliant.
This new voluntary component to our democracy is troubling but maybe we should take it even further. How about voluntary parking tickets or voluntary license fees or perhaps even the ultimate choice – voluntary taxes. You know, just pay what you think is fair. Now there’s something we would all like to volunteer for.
