Canada Reinstates Mandatory Census, To Delight of Social Scientists (sciencemag.org) 284
Eloking writes with news that the government of Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be reinstating the mandatory long-form census that the outgoing government had ended. Science reports: "The new Canadian government today announced it would restore the country's mandatory long-form census. 'Our plan for open and fair government starts today with restoring the long-form census,' said Navdeep Bains, minister of innovation, science and economic development, speaking in Ottawa alongside Jean-Yves Duclos, minister of families, children and social development. 'We're focused on good evidence-based policies.' Bains said that Statistics Canada would be able to meet the 2 May deadline to roll out the 2016 census, which is conducted every 5 years, and that there would be no additional costs to making it mandatory. He confirmed that residents who fail to fill out the census could face criminal prosecution, an issue that contributed to the decision by the Harper government to make the 2011 census voluntary."
name the gap (Score:2, Insightful)
And may the gap in data go down in history as the "Stephen Harper knowledge gap"
A sample of the actual 61-question census (Score:4, Informative)
A sample of the actual 61-question census can be found here:
http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imd... [statcan.gc.ca]
It's 40 pages of fill in the square with nitpicky crap like "so what DID you do at your job as a COMPUTER EN-GINEER." That's 40 pages per person. No wonder Canadians hate it.
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It might help to think of government as something you buy.
Over the course of 5 years I’ll end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for my government services during that time.
Spending a few minutes every 5 years to ensure they know what my needs look like is a pretty small investment to ensure my “purchase” is working well.
I’m sure filling out this census once every 5 years takes less time than you’ve spent on your last major electronics purchase (which I would guess was
Re:A sample of the actual 61-question census (Score:5, Informative)
Ehmm RTFF much?... It's 40 pages to fill in per 5 persons (if more than 5 persons live on the same address, you have to call in for a supplemental form). Which would make it about 8 pages per person. Roughly half of the questions should be skipped for persons aged below 15 and most questions are either 'mark the box' or writing names or amounts. It's not like you have to write a 40 page essay.... Questions are about:
-Inquiring the number of persons residential at the dwelling (the form gives detailed information about who to include and who not).
-Some basic information about each of these persons (Name, DoB, sex, marital status and relationships).
-Ethnic background of each person and language capabilities, detailed.
-Level of education and the type and amount of labour performed by each person over 15. Includes voluntary and unpaid labour (like household chores).
-The state and ownership situation of the dwelling the form is sent to.
Oh, and there is a page for comments.
Except for that last page, everything in the form seems to me to be very relevant for government decision making. At least, and I am generalizing here, if I'm well enough informed about what 'usual Canadians' consider proper government decision making. I'm Dutch, so I do not know the details, but I do read about what's going on in other countries than my own and that includes what populations usually expect from their governments.
Then, again, I can understand why some questions on that form would be highly objectionable to 'usual U.S. Americans'. And I might be wrong but most comments I see here are not those of Canadians... The impression I usually get from the U.S. is that you don't like to let your government meddle in affairs like basic health care, integration of minorities, housing regulations, public welfare or anything that touches income (taxes, minimum wage). And that's what many questions in that census are about. So, I'm not surprised I see so many negative comments here...
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>> you don't like to let your government meddle in affairs like (list)
The basic reason we don't want the government to meddle in these things is that they never do a good job. Some examples from your list:
>> basic health care
The US Veterans care system, our largest national health care provider, is a horrible mess.
>> integration of minorities
The result of bussing and other government policies triggered a massive flight to the suburbs and created today's deadly urban ghettos.
>> housi
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The basic reason we don't want the government to meddle in these things is that they never do a good job. Some examples from your list:
Maybe in the US. The Canadian health-care system, for all the complaints you hear, is actually pretty good. It was a major reason my sister moved here from the US. And all your other examples of things done badly in the US are not nearly as big a problem here in Canada.
Could it be that the US system of government is completely dysfunctional, and the Canadian one isn'
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>> Could it be that the US system of government is completely dysfunctional, and the Canadian one isn't?
I could agree that is the case. (My original answer was in response to a Dutch citizen asking me about US government.)
However, it will be a cold day in hell before the US models anything it does on Canada. Our entire model right now is prefaced on giving large contracts to the well-connected, and sprinkling just enough largess on the populace to ensure they keep mindlessly voting for the incumbent
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Yeah, it's a pain. It is also fairly limited in what it's asking for:
- ancestry/language: mostly useful for immigration services and first nations
- age/gender: mostly useful for projections on the workforce and social services
- education: mostly useful for projections on the workforce and education
- employment/income: again, useful data for economic planning
While it is intrusive, it is by no means as intrusive as it can be. (If I recall correctly, StatsCan has much more in depth surveys. Anything that w
Re:A sample of the actual 61-question census (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh canadians want it. That's why we turfed the conservatives. Anyone with any sort of science background, as well as pretty much all educated citizens do want the gathering of more information about the populace. Judging by trudeau's selection of ministers, he is doing a great job at putting people in power who are actually knowledgeable about what they are supposed to be the ministers of. I know good government is not something americans can comprehend, so i forgive you for your ignorance.
Considering youre an american, you can stfu with what you think canadians want as you are obviously not a canadian and not informed on these issues. You are just going off half cocked with your american crap rhetoric. Save it for your own government which we can all agree is corrupt as shit. But hey you put them there, so you have only yourself to blame.
Fix your own shit before commenting on other countries choices.
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Not 40 pages per person. Only a small percentage of people receive the long-form version of the census. The rest of the population receives the regular, shorter version. Consider that I've lived in Canada for 50 years and have never received a long-form census. I'd happily fill it out if I got one. Canadians don't hate it.
Harper has left Canada in a position where its data-collection is seriously crippled. I'm not talking about surveillance, I'm talking about data collection for scientific research, data co
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For those without a sense of humor, I was referring to questions like #43: "In this work, what were this person’s main activities? Please give details. For example: prepared legal documents, installed residential plumbing, guided fishing parties, made wood furniture products, taught mathematics"
Our plan for open and fair government (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have particular objections to the long form census, especially as I doubt they will come after you if you don't fill out all the questions, or answer erroneously (although considering the data is used for planning though this wouldn't necessarily seem to be in ones best interest).
However, it makes me worry that this is being presented as 'open and fair government'. I was really hoping Trudeau's campaign for 'real change' would include dropping the political blowing smoke up asses and not making every decision part of a heroic effort for 'open and fair government.'
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I'm no fan of Trudeau, but I'll take what I can get.
Apparently scientists are allowed to talk to the media without getting the answers reviewed by Harper's people first now: http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/11/06/news/breaking-trudeau-government-unmuzzles-scientists [nationalobserver.com]
A return to sanity seems to be a heroic effort these days.
Census value (Score:5, Insightful)
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btw, what census evidence was used to decide that ending the war on drugs would be worthwhile?
Maybe there were so many Canadians filling 'drug dealer' as their occupation (2006 census, question 42), that the government decided the extra income tax from legalizing that profession would benefit them more than the costs to society associated with drug (ab-)use. ;)
I base some things on *ideals*
Of course you should. But it IS like religion and science. We do want to make rational decisions about things when entire populations are involved. The alternative has historically proven to be often... very unpleasant.
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Say what?
Income splitting for famliies was you could transfer up to $50,000 from the higher earner to the lower earner to save on ta
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Liberal excuse to invade privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
The onerous nature of the questions lead to massive violations of privacy. NO citizen of any country should ever be compelled by force of law to reveal the private information of their lives. The government has ZERO right to know anything beyond the fact that I am alive and paying my taxes per the law. They don't need to know my skin color, my religion, what I do for a living, etc, etc.
The information they want to gather will only lead to the further degradation of the privacy of the citizens.
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How does it lead to the further degradation of the privacy of the citizens?
Like how Goolge Ads lead to the further degradation of the privacy of the citizens?
or
Like how mass surveillance of the NSA (as explained by E. Snowden) lead to the further degradation of the privacy of the citizens?
There is a difference, you know and I consider the former one much more benign than the latter. And a once in 5 year census, properly executed, orders of magnitudes less privacy invading than even Google Ads. I expect, fro
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The NSA spying was bad, you won't see me defending it.
Google Ads remembering that I was shopping for sexy panties for my wife and then seeing those ads while at work caused a bit of embarrassment. Yes, also a touch invasive.
And they should both be stopped.
I fail to see how pointing out other actions of evil justify a government mandating the turning over of such private information. Did I miss something in your rant?
A government forcing you declare your religion, or if you own guns, etc is an invasion.
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"NO citizen of any country should ever be compelled by force of law to reveal the private information of their lives."
Tell that to the line of cops who insisted on searching my bags and confiscating their contents at the G20.
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One might think their tax revenue service might know what the citizens are making. No need to burden the citizens with inane questions, just go ask your government accountants.
"25% of tax payers ended up pay 0%, sir, and 50% of those saw a redistribution assistance." Cross reference said non-tax payers with the postal codes and voila. You know how many poor you have and where they live.
War on Science and Data (Score:5, Informative)
Just a backgrounder ...
For the past 9+ years in Canada, we had a Conservative government (right wing ideologues).
They wanted to eliminate inconvenient truths that are against their ideologies, so they started a war on data and a war on science.
Here is a recent TV program explaining how despicable this is:
War on Data [youtube.com]
War on Science [youtube.com]
The new liberal government promised evidence based policies. One thing they promised is to reinstate the long form census which the Conservatives axed on false premises back in 2010.
So this is just undoing the damage done by right wingers ...
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The former progressive conservatives were a little right of center. The Canadian Reform Alliance a.k.a. the amalgamation of the PCs and Harper's Western Reform party were much further right of center. The Harper majority was a terribly right-of-center dictatorship which used lies and pandered to racists to secure and extend their powers.
The long-form census was just one victim... (Score:2)
...of Harper's government. He systematically crippled data-collection in Canada because facts and evidence don't play well with his ideological motives.
To see just how depressingly bad things got under Harper, have a read of this report done by MacClean's: http://www.macleans.ca/news/ca... [macleans.ca]
Re:The farther left you go, the more you lose (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The farther left you go, the more you lose (Score:5, Interesting)
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Pretty much.
It's also annoying as shit to fill out, being the typical longass-form government documents.
"Response rates are lower among certain groups, including immigrant populations, aboriginals, and low-income families."
The people too busy working and trying to make ends meet to spend a few hours reminding the government there's brown people with muslim names living at 2211 youfuckersalreadyknewallthis, Ottawa, appartment 404.
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The US long form asks about mental/emotionial issues you may have, how much money you make and how, about your commute, how old your house is and what appliances you have
Re:The farther left you go, the more you lose (Score:4)
The long form is just being restored. It was started in 1971 so it's not new. From http://voices-voix.ca/en/facts... [voices-voix.ca]
"The mandatory long-form census was implemented in 1971. Since that time, the census has been comprised of two census forms: a short form and a long form. The short-census includes 8 questions and probes basic household composition information. The long-form census includes an additional 53 questions, probing respondents on a variety of demographic, social, and economic subjects, including things like citizenship and immigration status, ethnic origin, religion, place of birth of parents, education, income and housing, child care and support payments, labour market activities, and unpaid/household work. This data is used to plan public programs and projects such as equalization payments, Employment Insurance benefits, the Old Age Security program, and the Canada Pension Plan. The data also has an impact on public transit and transportation infrastructure, health-care infrastructure, social services, and education.
The short form is sent to 100% of Canadians and is mandatory. Until 2010, the long-form was mandatory, and was sent to 1 in 5 Canadians, with the data extrapolated to the rest of the population. While it was mandatory, the response rate for the long-form census was approximately 94%, producing data from a non-biased sample of the population and serving as one of the most important planning tools in Canada. Because this data is considered representative, data from the mandatory long-form census has been used as an “anchor”, reducing the risk of bias in other StatsCan surveys.
Because of its breadth and high-response rate, the mandatory long-form census has been one of the most reliable data sources in Canada. Reliable statistical information about all parts of society also supports government decisions to fight poverty and reduce the marginalization of disadvantaged groups. Measuring equality requires good, long-term and repeated data in order to determine if we are making progress. Without it, we simply don’t know."
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"supports government decisions to fight poverty and reduce the marginalization of disadvantaged groups. Measuring equality requires good, long-term and repeated data in order to determine if we are making progress. Without it, we simply donâ(TM)t know"
Equality (in this sort of sense) is not a legitimate governmental purpose.
Re:The farther left you go, the more you lose (Score:4)
Equality (in this sort of sense) is not a legitimate governmental purpose.
Maybe not in the US. But in Canada, the purpose of a government is whatever Canadians decide it should be, and if most of us think the government should help marginalized and disadvantaged groups, then that is by definition a legitimate governmental purpose.
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To "help marginalized and disadvantaged groups" is not the same as bringing about "equality".
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it doesn't say "bringing about equality". It says "measuring equality".
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"equality" is an irrelevant measure when trying to improve the situation of the poor. It would be an inappropriate and in any case unachievable goal. What matters is not how far away person X and Y are. What matters is that person X is not starving to death etc.
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That's one opinion, sure. It's not the only possible one. Perhaps Canadians are more interested in helping the unfortunate through government means than US citizens.
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the government already has access to (like income), but are too lazy to go get
In Canada that is protected information. Only the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) can access it. There are serious consequences for folks leaking that kind of info here.
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The UK one is here: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guid... [ons.gov.uk]
Broadly, it's
- who lives here, and how are they related?
- how big is the house, and is it owned or rented?
- what is your age, ethnicity, education, origin, religion?
- are you healthy, do you have a job and what kind?
- how do you travel to work?
They don't ask for income, or any identity numbers.
Knowing how many bathrooms are in the house is useful for planning water usage, and tracking poverty or overcrowding (no / shared bathroom).
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Long Form (Score:2, Interesting)
If it's anything like the US long-form census, then most of the questions don't seem to have any bearing on policy. Who else lives in your house, where they used to live, the personal history of everyone in your house, down to everywhere they worked, exactly what type of work they did, how much land your house sits on, do you own a stove... It's all SPSS-fodder as far as I can tell.
Most of this stuff is already collected by the BLS, anyways.
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Don't answer that, I already know how and why it doesn't impact policy making.
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"making policy and decisions based on evidence"
Imagine how much better "policy and decisions" they could make if they could put your whole life under the microscope! Please send all your passwords to the police right away.
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Well, UK is at 308 years (if you baseline on acts of union [wikipedia.org], which some might quibble about); thus demonstrating that statement to be erroneous.
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Re: The farther left you go, the more you lose (Score:2)
Im sure the canadian form doesn't include a page signing over your power of attorney, first born, immortal soul and first option on all future offers of sexual congress to Trump Holdings however.
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What they should do is not criminalize it, but loudly and often let everyone know that future policy will be based on the results of they survey.
That way, when all the paranoid conservatives don't fill it out because the don't want the 'gubmint to know dey bidnez'. All policy will be based around gay muslims, who did fill out the forms.
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"if you can't protect it, don't collect it"
no government OR business has proven to us that they can safeguard our info. therefore, I will never willingly give info to any 'authority' that I don't have to, under pain of arrest or actual physical pain.
I could care less what 'good uses' they list. the bad overweighs the good. I safeguard my personal info as best I can and since we get an almost weekly news item about this or that company having a network or computer break-in, the industries have not proven
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how much do you trust their information security?
Very much. I've had professional dealings with Statistics Canada in the past and their computer security is very, very impressive. I would say the census data is amongst the best-protected data in Canada, if not North America.
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Was it a science based decision to force his cabinet to be 50% male and 50% female?
Trudeau wanted a cabinet that reflected Canadian society. Whether or not you think that's a good thing can be argued, I suppose, but it's not unreasonable to try to make your government representative of the wider society.
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The electorate decides who best represents their views and while ~50% of the population are women only 26% of the MPs elected were, meaning that a significant portion of women in the country are just fine with a man representing them, at least in terms of the federal government.
For most people in established democracies, gender is simply not the primary defining condition as to how they want their government managed. They want competent representative that share at least some of their views and if that happ
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Funny how the "meritocracy" tends to disproportionately favor upper-income white males. Taller than average ones, at that. Sometimes you need what appears to be an unfair policy to counter-act unconcious bias.
Compared to the last cabinet, the minister of science is now actually a scientist. The minister of defense is actually a soldier, and the minister of transportation is a friggin' astronaut. I don't see much to complain about.
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Each cabinet has had people who spent a life outside of politics working in related fields as well as people who have no relation to the department they now head (like say and astronaut and Transport - unless you think we'll start sending things cross country strapped to booster rockets). It was true of Harper's cabinets and is equally true of Trudeau's.
It is funny you mention the Science Minister since it was the last Liberal government who removed that position from cabinet and Harper who brought it bac
Re:The farther left you go, the more you lose (Score:4, Informative)
The NDP (our Socialist Party) did not win this election, which is a shame as they're the most Libertarian Canadian political party.
The Liberals are the Centrist Party. Fun fact, they balanced the budget 8 times in a row before the Conservatives ran up the biggest deficit in Canadian history and finally managed to balance the budget for the election. The Liberals were also the only party this election who ran on a platform of deficit spending to fix infrastructure, much like a household will borrow money if needed to fix the roof.
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The liberals helped balance their books like most politicians balance their books, by cheating.
They made changes to employment insurance requirements which resulted in fewer eligible people. While not necessarily a bad thing based on circumstances, they failed to then adjust the EI payment rates to reflect the new number and instead kept it artificially high to collect more money than following the federal formula would normally allow.
They also made significant cuts to the transfer payments to the province
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Socialist != Social Democrat. The NDP is the latter.
Good post otherwise. Carry on.
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I don't know about how Canada's left works[...]
And yet you proceed to give your uninformed opinion anyway.
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Making it mandatory or else face criminal charges, is simply ridiculous.
It may be extreme, but how else do you encourage people to fill it in. Heck, this only happens every five years?
It is a pain to fill in, but if it means understanding the needs of the general population better, then I am for it. Sure they will be bad data, such as when people just make things up, but every statistical process has some error margin.
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Pay for it.
Depending on height of reward, that would either achieve nothing, or skew results towards low-income households. Since those would be more likely to take the money (vs. richer people who'd say "f** that, I've got more important things to do").
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Some things are civic duties. I got summoned for jury duty starting the end of the month, for example. As far as the census goes, if we pay everybody in the country $10 to fill out census forms, we're either going to have to raise taxes by an average of $10 or add $3G to the deficit.
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Yes, because government is all about doing things for groups of people instead of the country as a whole.
Let there be no part of your life secret so the government can do for you. Just stop them before they take that next step and decide all you can do.
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Ahem. [wikipedia.org] Cough. [wikipedia.org]
When you axe the mandatory census, and start losing track of things like the population of towns, it's impossible to allocate funding on any basis other than throwing a handful of coins onto a large map of the country, and allocating based on what landed where.
Re:Ridiculous... (Score:4, Insightful)
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A non-mandatory census is an absurdity.
It's non-cens!
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Re:Open and (Score:5, Insightful)
No, their plan actually calls for making evidence based policy instead of simply deciding what they want the facts to be.
You know, collect information and use it to make decisions, instead of just making decisions based on ideology which has nothing to do with reality.
But, hey, go live in your mountain cabin and continue to believe this stupid crap.
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Unfortunately, world history has a looong list of countries using such information "to make decisions" about how best to deal with Jews or Cossacks or Indians or Armenians or Japanese or Kurds or Sikhs or... I could go on, but you probably get the point.
But, hey, go live in your mountain cabin and continue to believe this stupid crap.
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If you are scared of how it can be misused, then you should call for the immediate disbanding of the armed forces, as those have been used by every single dictator in history to great effect.
You not understanding the important of a census doesn't make you look to knowledgeable of this subject.
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Um, okay? Twist my arm, dude!
You not understanding the important of a census doesn't make you look to knowledgeable of this subject.
Hey now, the correct term is "African American Kettle", you insensitive bastard!
You've confused "usefulness" with "propriety" - You not understanding the role of government doesn't leave much room to lob criticism.
We deny our governments a great many "important" powers - Random searches and seizures;
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Evidence would be good. Compelling people by threat of force to give evidence is not.
And it degrades the quality of the evidence. "I'm from the government. How often do you use illegal drugs? If you don't answer you're going to jail. If you say yes it goes on a permanent record that the next administration might use against you. Ah, you never use them? Thanks for the valuable sociologic
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If you want your statistical data to be reliable, it has to be random and that means it cannot be a self-selecting group of responders.
The actual questions on the long form (which is sent to one in five households, randomly selected) are here: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs... [statcan.gc.ca]
And no, most Canadians don't believe the government will do anything sinister with the information. We have a long tradition of democratic traditions and strong democratic institutions and those offer far more protection than refu
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Fun fact, the left (NDP) lost this election. Another fun fact, the left were the only party promising to get rid of the government spying that the right introduced (Bill C51).
Another fun fact, left vs right is a different axis then authoritarian vs libertarian.
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>But, hey, go live in your mountain cabin and continue to believe this stupid crap.
If that's what it takes to get away from psychopaths who want a gun pointed at me to tick some boxes on paper that make them feel better, it might not be a bad idea.
If you truly believe that census-takers are psychopaths who want to point a gun at you to fill in a form, then please, go ahead and live in a mountain cabin. For our protection.
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The census is important.
What are the big complaints with all social science data?
They are nearly all subject to selection biases; many are self-selecting and/or opt-in, etc. And the sample sizes are usually quite small.
This is pretty much the only source of data that is taken from the population selected at random, is mandatory, and the sample size is massive. Its good data.
Its taken once every 5 years, but only affects around 20% of the population. My household has never even been selected. Growing up my p
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While reinstating the long form census may not be big news, the scrapping of it certainly was.
As for it showing up on Slashdot, well it does involve a government shift from being ideologically opposed to the long form census to one that demands it in order to inform policy. (I'm not going to go as far as declaring that it was a Harper government conspiracy, but their attitude certainly made it look that way to left leaning individuals.) Many people are also opposed to the long form census because of priva
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This is not minor news. This was a major news item when the long-form was made optional, and it's been a plank of the Liberal platform to reinstate it.
Statistics Canada is a point of pride in Canada, albeit minor. That organization has been referenced internationally as an example of how to collect and provide information for detailed governance. When the long-form was made optional, the Harper government came out and said that an optional long-form would be nearly statistically identical in results, yet
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Enough that the voting block representing them inside the Conservative party were Harper's primary motivation for the change. Many people I know (especially in Alberta) consider the long form census a violation of their right to privacy and they made a lot of noise about wanting it gone.
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Re:Tradition (Score:5, Insightful)
The same Conservatives who passed Bill 51 to spy on all citizens and directly gather the information? Yes they really must love their privacy to vote in the most anti-privacy government in Canadian history.
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Filling in a census form is not a loss of freedom. Yes I know king Herod held a census and then he killed babies but the two events did not have a causal relationship and census takers are not babykillers (ps. neither are abortion doctors).
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The right to refuse to fill in a census form is not an important freedom. I know there's a set of people who claim that there are no unimportant freedoms, but they are literally crazy.
You will note that it was and is also illegal in the US and other countries to refuse the census.
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In the US it is only required to state the number of people in your house for purposes of allocating representatives to the House.
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During WWII, US Census data was used to identify Japanese citizens to be rounded up an placed in camps. We also no that it's been used since 9/11 to keep tabs on "suspicious individuals".
No one knows what the government will be like in the future, and questions that seem harmless now may end up being used to hang you later.
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Can we have the US freedom in healthcare
You have it. It's not illegal to pay for private health care in Canada.
and certain US state's freedom from car insurance as well?
You are free to build your own highway on your own land and drive an uninsured car on it. But on public roads you must respect the rules.
Re: Tradition (Score:2)
You cited a law about private insurance. Gp spoke of private healthcare.
Does everybody in North America struggle under the delusion that these two radically different things are the same thing ?
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So gather data via surveys.
Disclosing private information to the state is onerous. Especially when that data may later be misused if a later government decides to change policy. (Japanese Americans who told the feds their details in the 1940s thought their data was protected by law. Then the feds changed the law. Haw haw.)
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Most of us want the government we have to do better with the money they are given from us. This means making rational, well-thought out, science supported decisions. To do this, one needs good data. Statistics Canada were world renowned experts in this, and yet the previous government decided they were irrelevant to their decision making.
The previous go