In response to the comments made in “Harper trying to protect our privacy,” (St. Albert Gazette, July 28), I don’t feel that the writer has an understanding of the wealth of information that Statistics Canada collects and disseminates or knows how important confidentiality is to Statistics Canada.
Having worked a census in the past, I was surprised by the degree of security that Statistics Canada enforced and upholds. The information that is collected from respondents is immediately transferred into data that cannot be traced back to an individual. Has the privacy commission ever received a complaint that data from a census has been linked back to a respondent? I don’t think so. Another safety measure taken by Statistics Canada is that all census employees take an oath and are informed that any employee who is found guilty of divulging respondent information — even to the police — can spend up to five years in jail and a fine of $5,000. This is an oath that is valid for life. Keeping respondents’ information confidential is their main focus along with disseminating quality data. According to both former chief statisticians, making the long form voluntary would compromise all quality of the survey data. I think Tony Clement has targeted Statistics Canada unfairly and is tarnishing a great record of confidence that Statistics Canada has tried so hard to build with the public.
Furthermore, I am not a statistician or a policy maker, so I cannot assume I know why a question on the census is being asked. What I do know is that Statistics Canada is not responsible for inventing questions for the census. It is the responsibility of the government (i.e., Stephen Harper’s government) and users of the data to create questions that will provide enough information so all levels of government can make informed decisions about our country’s future. If the Conservative government doesn’t think a question is useful or doesn’t like the laws surrounding the consequences of not completing a census (i.e., jail time), then they should change it. They should not change a mandatory survey to voluntary when all experts in the field are saying that doing so negatively impacts the science they use to produce complete data.
Bottom line is that Clement’s unfounded decision to change the conditions of the long form census right before the 2011 census is an absurdity. Leave the decisions about how to generate quality data to the experts — the statisticians.
L. Roberge, St. Albert
