Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's intervention. When we start to, as a Parliament, hand over sole responsibility without any ministerial oversight, in terms of what an independent chief statistician could create, I am not suggesting here that Parliament should craft the questions. Absolutely not, we should not craft the questions.

What we should be doing is what we are currently doing under the design of the program, and that is ministerial oversight of those questions to be sure they are appropriate. Let me give some other examples of constituents who have brought to us their concerns, saying that when they receive the questionnaires, the ag questionnaires specifically, they are looking at the questions and asking, “Am I comfortable answering some of these very personal questions?”

What I spoke about in my speech was absolutely accurate about some of the questions they are being asked. They are very personal questions about how they live their lives. It is mandatory to fill it out. I do not know the numbers, but we have had examples in our party of constituents who are saying to us in our ridings, “Well, I will just lie, and I will give false information on that particular one.”

There are consequences for giving false information that are outlined in the legislation. However, frankly, who is going to enforce that? Who is going to dig deep enough to find out that people lied about the number of bathrooms in their house, or the fact that they get up in five in the morning to go to work but they lied and said that they got up at nine in the morning, giving false information.

If we are to make sure the questions are relevant, the minister involved here should have that oversight. We need to have these people be as independent as possible, but there is a place for the minister to be involved and there is a place, if necessary, for Parliament to be involved.

Phil McColeman

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