29 May 2014

Will we regain the full census?

Saskatchewan university history professor Bill Waiser in an opinion piece printed in the Ottawa Citizen explains why it's important to have access to the census.
If you recall there was a battle royal over access ten years ago and a compromise reached. Part of the deal was, and is, a clause (2.1) in the 2005 Act to amend the Statistics Act (S.C. 2005, c. 31) that requires "a review of the informed-consent question "no later than two years before the taking of the third census of population (2016) … by any committee of the Senate, the House of Commons or both Houses of Parliament that may be designated or established for that purpose." Clause 2.2 requires a report on the matter."

I've been puzzled as I couldn't find these conditions in the consolidated version of the act provided on the Statistics Canada website.

It's an interesting omission, if I was of a suspicious turn of mind I might imagine someone is trying to bury something.

Read Waiser's article at:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Opinion+protect+future+census+data/9882516/story.html

No comments: