Statement made on 08 July 2010 by Senator Claudette Tardif
Hon. Claudette Tardif (Deputy Leader of the Opposition):
Honourable senators, according to Richard Shearmur, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Spatial Statistics and Public Policy, the government's decision to cut the long-form census questionnaire
. . . will increase our ignorance. . . . As society becomes less informed, it will be easier for the government to manipulate it and to use its authority to circulate specious arguments and ideological positions. [This move] . . . is an assault on democracy in Canada.
Women's groups, marketing experts, stay-at-home mothers, progressive economists, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Canadian Association for Business Economics, the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, and researchers and editorialists of all stripes are opposed to this decision. A voluntary survey will result in biased, unreliable data that are not representative of the population, because only those who wish to respond will do so.
Why marginalize the people and groups that are already in the minority and on the fringe once again? These groups have already been ignored in many of the decisions made by the Harper government. Why does this government insist on making them sink into oblivion?