Fixing Harper - Part 1 - The Long-Form Census

With the defeat of the Harper Conservatives on October 19th, the rebuilding of Canada can begin.  Here begins a series of posts that will look at what could, should or might be done to reverse the worst of the decisions made during the past 10 years.

The website heaveharper.ca is still active and outlines what it sees as the damage done to Canada and it's institutions.

The Facebook page called 78 Days, 78 Reasons lists the long-form census as Reason # 6 for dumping the Harper Conservatives.

One of the oft-mentioned dumb things that the Harper Conservatives did, announced in 2010, was to end of the mandatory long-form census.  A  bit of history about the census in general can be found here.  This was, according to the Conservatives, to put an end to the terrible intrusion into people's private lives, despite the clearly evident fact that there had been very, very few complaints about the survey and, so far as I know, no prosecutions for non-compliance.

The Liberals even set up an on-line petition to ask the government of the day to bring it back.  In the end, it seemed easier to just defeat the Conservatives and get on with the job.

Back in February of 2015, Macleans published an article that disagreed with the Chief Statistician's assertion that the voluntary survey was just fine.

The voices against this clearly ideological move were many and varied.  Examples here, and here.... among many, many others.

The elimination of the census, of course, was only part of the damage done, which extended to budget cuts and other dismantling of information sources that government and industry used.

Despite the nay-sayers, there is plenty of enthusiasm for the return of the long-form census.

In response to these nay-sayers, someone posted the following comment:

"Just amazing how so many people seem to think the census is intolerably intrusive but are OK with Harper's far more intrusive bill C-51, which grants unprecedented and excessive powers to government departments and agencies, opening the door to collecting, analyzing and potentially keeping forever the personal information of all Canadians, including every instant of a person’s tax information and details about a person’s business and vacation travel. All with no oversight from Parliament so CSIS or the PMO can use the info any way they want. 
You like the idea of CSIS or Justin Trudeau having a gander at your tax info, your travel, your internet browsing history? If so, you can thank Stephen Harper."

It appears that the long form census will be coming back, hopefully in time for the 2016 census.  A good early step.