Short Form Census = Conservative Fingers Are Crossed (Toes Too)

The fact of the matter is simply that all levels of government rely on census data to decide where money should be allocated.  As much as people love to take up a cause and talk about it at work, most often they never really call their MP or write a letter, so how does a government reliably get some information about what their constituents need and what they are concerned about?  A mandatory census.  A small amount of people may find it invasive, as if the government will gain some supreme knowledge about the inner workings of your life by asking 'How many toilets do you have in your home?'- maybe attempting to manage waste-water services or calculating environmental factors is out of the question, right?  If they wanted to know the colour of your underwear, I'd be more than offended but most people end up putting down more personal information on a survey in the mail than they do on the census.  So it's the best way for any level of government to determine things which factor into making a community more livable, for them to figure out how to serve us better- and that's the point of it, they are supposed to be serving us.  So why not at least try to make that possible?  It has to start somewhere.

Now that we have a short-form census (mandatory), we have the voluntary household national survey to go along with it.  This means that it's possible if one group gets more people to fill out the survey, another group that didn't motivate enough people to fill them out could receive less funding.  It's essentially dividing people up by making the household survey voluntary and hoping to make uninformed decisions.  When there are complaints, Harper will say "Well more people should have taken the survey" and throw out a percentage of citizens who took it and who didn't so as to justify his actions.
Older Canadians will most likely turn big numbers on the survey, which will lean away from issues concerned new/young Canadians, a lot of whom will not grasp the importance of the original long-form census.

This new census package is deemed less expensive when in reality, more forms are going out than ever before and all that paper work will need to be handled by a paid staff.

If everything ends up looking skewed, the next step is to say the census system is broken and either scrap it or make it solely voluntary.. if you've got the time- and Steve will totally understand if you don't!  Tony Clement himself admitted that the change was initiated without consulting organizations and governments that work closely with Statistics Canada.  This goes to show the willingness of the present government to shoot first and ask questions later (if anybody makes a fuss).  Chief Statistician Munir Shiekh resigned on 07/21/10 in protest of the Conservative government's change in policy, and he was originally appointed by Harper in the early months of 2008.
"This relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census- it can not" - Munir Sheikh
But of course the National Citizens Coalition and the Fraser Institute support this idea- along with abolishing minimum wage laws/gun control, promoting free market and privatization of healthcare insurance and services (just to mention a few real neat-o ideas).

Now, let's take a look at who doesn't like the idea.  Ahem...

Federal Canadian Municipalities
City of Toronto
Atlantic Provinces Economic Council
National Statistics Council
Canadian Jewish Congress
Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (surprising considering Harper and his religious views)
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
Canadian Medical Association
Statistical Society of Canada
American Statistical Association
Registered Nurses Association of Ontario
Canadian Conference of the Arts
Governments of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island & Manitoba.

Then on 07/19/10, representatives from several institutions signed a letter expressing disapproval of the change and desire to speak with Tony Clement to find another solution.  The institutions are as follows:

Canadian Association for Business Economics
Canadian Institution of Planners
Canadian Nurses Association
Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
Caledon Institution of Social Policy
Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada
Canadian Labour Congress
Canada West Foundation
United Way of Canada
Glendon School of Public and International Affairs

8 days later, the House of Commons industry committee special hearing revealed out of approximately 12 million forms (that's 12 with a lot of zeroes after it), 166 complaints were known to be received directly and some included in that number were indirect complaints.
It was announced in August 2010, $30-million will be spent on a campaign to increase the response rate to the voluntary form (even though this is the first year); in December of last year, Statistics Canada released information which further revealed that 1/2 of this money would be required for tasks unrelated to this campaign.  No further explanation as to what 'tasks unrelated to this campaign' would entail.

There is one glaring point of foolishness which has come to light time and time again on Mr. Harper and his knowledge of Native peoples- Aboriginal Group (Question #18) states that people of East/Asian Indian descent need only answer 'no'- this part has to point it out, like these people don't understand their heritage.  Harper has shown on several occasions he does not know the difference between aboriginal people of Canada and Indian people.

They say that the census is invasive, yet if you do not fill it out and return it they will send someone directly to your home (this happened to me).  This person is also armed with a GPS tracker.  So not only will they come right out there to ask you the questions instead of you filling it out normally, but they will also plot your home's coordinates into the GPS tracker so that the government has a map right to your front door.

I'll end only with this for my opinion on this subject and pretty much on the whole way that the Harper government conducts its business....

"Real numbers force you to make decisions you might not like.  Better to create a fiction that fits your assumptions" - Nevil Hunt (Coffee Talk)