Critics of the government’s controversial decision to end the mandatory long form census requirement have delighted in pointing out an inconsistency.
Next year when heads are being counted, filling out the general long form will be voluntary. Canadians who refuse to fill it out will no longer be threatened with fines or jail .
Farmers, however, will still have to fill out the detailed agriculture census form or face a $500 fine or a three-month jail term.
“My point is this,” said Liberal Wayne Easter during an all-day House of Commons debate on the issue Sept. 28. “If the government is talking about principle (the right to privacy), then why the principle in one area and not in the other?”
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Edmonton Conservative MP Mike Lake, to whom the question was directed, did not answer the question.
But several rural Conservatives last week said they would like to see the principle apply across the board.
They argue that many farmers in their ridings find the agriculture census questions intrusive and time consuming and follow-up calls from Statistics Canada employees annoying.
“I certainly would like to see the agriculture census voluntary,” said southwestern Saskatchewan MP David Anderson. “I would argue that typically if you are trying to force farmers to give information, it may not be as accurate as if they gave it voluntarily.”
He said no one doubts the value of data collected about the farm sector, “but there are other ways to collect it other than forcing people.”
During the debate, Anderson told the story of one farmer constituent who was getting cancer treatments when Statistics Canada officials began to call him about the farm survey. He asked to be left alone.
“Rather than do that, they started calling him from seven o’clock in the morning until 11 o’clock at night,” said the MP. “He could not convince them to leave him alone until we finally intervened and asked Statistics Canada to stop calling.”
North-central Saskatchewan MP Randy Hoback said he also would favour making the agriculture census voluntary. “I certainly would have no problem with that.”
At the very least, he said, the timing should be changed.
“When you ask farmers in the middle of May to take time to answer their questions as they are trying to seed and then come back at them in the fall with telephone questions when they are trying to harvest, that is inconvenient and disrespectful,” said Hoback.
When the long form census uproar started in the summer, agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said the agriculture census issue was different from the general census and farmers support it.
