OTTAWA — Five things worth knowing about the tug of war over the mandatory long-form portion of Canada's census, which was cancelled in 2010 by the Conservatives and reinstated Thursday by the new Liberal government:
What is it? The long-form census was a detailed — critics might say intrusive — and compulsory questionnaire that was distributed to one-third of Canadian households as part of the census every five years.
While the shorter portion of the survey asked basic questions about things like age, gender and marital status, the long-form portion dealt with more in-depth issues like ethnicity, education levels, employment, income and housing.
What happened to it? The Conservatives, opposed to the notion of requiring Canadians by law to provide detailed personal information, cancelled the mandatory long-form census in 2010 and replaced it with the National Household Survey — a similar questionnaire that was distributed to more households than its compulsory predecessor.
Critics warned it would produce sub-standard, unreliable data because it was no longer mandatory — a warning that experts say was borne out by the facts following the 2011 census.
Why was that a problem? Supporters of the mandatory long form, including anti-poverty activists, municipal planners, religious groups, economists, social scientists and aboriginal organizations, decried the end of the mandatory census. They said its loss left big information gaps about key populations and made it almost impossible to compare data from earlier years.
Did anyone ever get in trouble for not filling out the mandatory form? No one has ever been jailed for ignoring a compulsory census questionnaire, but a few have come close.
Janet Churnin was 79 when she was found guilty in 2014 of violating the Statistics Act for ignoring her census forms, but the judge granted her a conditional discharge, ensuring she would have no criminal record after completing 50 hours of community service. Churnin, who had faced the possibility of a $500 fine and three months in jail, objected to the fact the software Statistics Canada used to gather its information was designed by U.S. weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
What's happening now? The Liberal government says it will bring the long form back in time for next year's census.
It didn't provide details on how it plans to make sure that people actually fill it out, although Navdeep Bains, the minister of innovation, science and economic development, said "the law is the law" and the Statistics Act hasn't changed, which suggests penalties would include jail time. Bains said restoring the long form will mean a return to solid, high-quality data.
