Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the bill tonight and to some of the issues, which I think are important to put on the record, around the changes in the Statistics Act that the bill will put into place.

The bill amends the Statistics Act to protect the privacy of Canadians by requiring their consent for the release, after 92 years, of the information that they provide in a census-related household survey. It also removes the jail term from two of the Statistics Act's offence provisions and provides that a jail term is not to be imposed for default in payment of a fine imposed under those provisions. I will be supporting this bill. It is quite legitimate to remove the jail terms.

However, even though the bill removes the threat of a jail term, it is very important to understand why certain surveys should be mandatory. It is important to understand that, since we are removing one of the points that a Statistics Canada field worker might bring up to encourage somebody to fill out the census.

The jail term aside, it is important to get people to fill out surveys. It is important to reduce sample bias. That is the kind of error that occurs when certain groups do not answer the national household survey. We know that certain groups of people—single parents, renters, rural Canadians, very rich Canadians— tend to fall into this category, and it is really important for us to have good information in order to govern ourselves wisely.

It is not enough to simply threaten people. It is very important to explain to people. It is important for field workers to have the time to explain to people what the census data is used for and explain how they are helping the country by filling out the census.

People are very busy, and that is one of the reasons people would choose not to fill out the national household survey. It is important to have field workers out there who can use other methods of persuasion, including just going and helping somebody fill out the survey by explaining the questions and explaining what the answers to the questions are used for. They could explain how it helps the country and how it helps decision-makers make the right decision for the people they are serving by giving policymakers a clear picture of the country. Last of all, I think it is important to simply appeal to people's sense of duty to fill out the census.

One thing that Canadians may not know is that 2016 is the next census year. The current plan is to have automatic linkage of income and benefit data. The Canada Revenue Agency will automatically link that data to the census. What this means for Canadians is, in effect, that Canadians will have automatically filled out the questions about income that were previously on the long form census.

There will be no questions on income, but what is happening now is that there will be something called data linkage between the data at the Canada Revenue Agency and Statistics Canada. This has happened in the past. In the past there has been an optional box that people could check off to use that linkage. It was optional in the past, and now it is going to apply to everybody.

This particular step is okay, but it is really important for there to be a much broader discussion among our population about data linkages.

As some people might know, some European countries do not even have a census. They rely completely on data linkages between different government databases. They rely on people reporting to the government every time they change addresses, for example. If a student goes away to school or somebody changes apartments, they have to report their change of address to the government.

The government's plan is to rely on more data linkages, but it is important to have a discussion in the population about the extent to which Canadians are willing to rely on more and more data linkages, because their personal information is going to be shared more and more among government agencies.

The Privacy Commissioner has said that there are definitely privacy issues that have to be understood by the public before we proceed too far. There is a balance. However, Canadians need to talk about where they are comfortable having that balance.

I want to look at some of the reasons for having good census data, including data that used to come from the long-form census. Currently, those questions are being asked on the national household survey. However, the data is probably being collected in a biased manner. We know that, because the users of the data are noticing that there are problems.

I recently went to visit the Halton region in Ontario. I sat down with officials who use data to make decisions. I met with economic development officials, urban planners, not-for-profit agencies, social service providers, school boards, and public health officials. They were all very upset about the loss of the long-form census.

One of the reasons for having the long-form census is that it gives us high-quality, local data, because it is such a big survey. If we can get rid of the sample bias, it gives us really good local data. That allows local decision-makers to make smart decisions, because they know their community.

If we believe, which I think probably a majority of the members in this chamber do, that decisions should be made at the local level whenever possible, that we should try to avoid a one-size-fits-all government from Ottawa, and that if local governments can make decisions better they should make the decisions, then we should support the idea of local governments and local decision-makers having good data in order to make those decisions. That is what we are losing by getting rid of the long-form census.

One of the things I found out in the Halton region is that more and more not-for-profit groups are required to provide reports to funders on the value for money given by funders. In fact, even the current Conservative government is looking at something called social finance, whereby we very carefully measure the impact social service agencies or other agencies are having so that philanthropists, for example, know the impact their donations are having. When the federal government tries to implement social finance, it has to be able to measure the effect that someone who gets a contract is having on the community. To collect that local data, it needs the long-form census to help.

There is a famous example in the province of New Brunswick. The premier of New Brunswick said it was having trouble evaluating the effects of its five-year anti-poverty program because of the current government's elimination of the long-form census.

I found out that school boards need good information to see growth trends in order to plan ahead. For example, Milton is a very fast-growing part of the Halton region. It needs good information before it commits bricks and mortar, before it spends a lot of money building schools. It also needs good information before it hires special needs teachers.

I found out that the 2006 census is still being used to calculate grant dollars for first nation, Métis, and Inuit student populations in the Halton school board. It is not using the 2011 census results, because those census results are unreliable.

I have heard that people who work on poverty are not getting good enough information. Poverty intervention works best if it is done and targeted at a local level. I found out that in 2006, the census said that the difference in life expectancy between people living in the richest and poorest neighbourhoods in the Halton region was eight years for men and four years for women. That is a very sad statistic, because it means that poor people are paying the penalty of dying earlier. In the 2011 voluntary household survey, the eight year difference for men went down to four years, and the four year difference for women went down to zero years.

This sudden change can only be attributed to the fact that the voluntary national households survey was a poor substitute for the long form census. Not being able to see the problems that the marginalized in Canada have to face is a shame.

To conclude—

Ted Hsu

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