The Progressive Economics Forum

Tom Flanagan, Steven Harper’s guru in younger days and a political sherpa who helped guide the rise of the New Right in Canada in its early days, has put in his two cents on the census affair.
It is a thoughtful piece, if somewhat predictable. But it leans on two important facts in an erroneous [...]

There are many ways to view the legacy of Prime Minister Harper and his Government thus far, but few offer evidence that the processes and institutions of democracy are held with any esteem.
The selection of the latest Governor General of Canada has been described as one such rare example.
The process of selecting the Governor General [...]

Don Tapscott nails it in his commentary in today’s Globe and Mail.
Everyone wants to see and not be seen.  That’s getting less possible, even for the most guarded individual.
Today’s zeitgeist is Google, and the Google Zeitgeist is transparency.  The push-back  — and every thesis has its antithesis, as all you Hegel fans out there know [...]

In the past few weeks some of Canada’s most respected economic authorities, including Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, have voiced concerns over the fragility of the recovery, globally and at home.  Now Paul Krugman joins that chorus of Cassandras, pointing his finger straight at the wishful thinkers who say Canada’s heavy lifting is [...]

Since I last posted something on the Census here (August 1! Time flies!), every passing day has advanced the census story with dizzying speed. I’ve said it before: this story has more legs than a bucket of chicken.
Here are the top notes of the last 10 days, ending in a fascinating and uniquely Canadian [...]

A superb article in the Toronto Star by Antonia Zerbisias, entitled “Who Are You”, today features a fascinating interview with Dr Jan Kestle at Environics Analytics regarding their use of census data.
In the print edition it has a data geek’s centrefold! Two pages of how census data is used to profile [...]

A research colleague from Calgary sent along news of the latest Calgary Herald editorial on the topic. I am copying the email with permission, on condition of anonymity.
**********************
Here is a link to the lead editorial in yesterday’s Calgary Herald. This is the second editorial on this in the past 3 weeks. You know you’re [...]

I am posting this on behalf of a colleague from Victoria B.C., Ian Faris, an employee with Statistics Canada for 20 years, and now a research analyst and member of the Canadian Social Data Consortium. The data consortium is organized to “liberate” census and related data at a modest fee for city planners, public [...]

Are there good alternatives to the mandatory census long-form questionnaire to collect the information that we need?
Last Saturday CBC’s The House had a sparkling section on the census which offered some thoughts from a Danish statistician and the views of Canada’s longest serving Chief Statistician, Ivan Fellegi. On Tuesday Tavia [...]

Professor Emeritus at University of British Columbia, William Stanbury, has produced a handy treatise on coercion, published online in the Hill Times this week. Stanbury focused his career as a professor of economics on strategic decision-making in business, including government relations, competition rules, regulations and other public policies that strengthen business performance.
His [...]

Anybody that has been watching the unfolding of the census dust-up could be forgiven for no longer knowing where to place their bets. Are the Conservatives really going to go through with this disruptive measure, or are there still ways out? The answer is yes, a successful resolution is still possible (read on). [...]

Once again Stephen Harper has charted a course for the nation that drops the ball in the provinces’ and territories’ lap.
Since forming government in 2006, the Harper Conservatives have withdrawn federal presence from social policy, health policy, and climate change while ramping up defence, security and trade. The cut to the GST [...]

Stephen Harper’s 1991 master’s thesis used census data to make his case about “political business cycles” and he even noted how disruptive changes in methodology could be for long-term analysis in understanding how Canadian political behaviour changed over time.
He ran a model to show the links between variables such as unemployment and changes in [...]

A highly regarded economist and business consultant sent me a link to his view of the significance and consequence of the Government’s decision to axe the census long-form questionnaire.
Elegantly concise and to the point, it reads like a cheat sheet for an exam on why Census long-form information is important, from the on-the-ground [...]

The resignation of Chief Statistician Munir Sheik has far-reaching political consequences, and may be the game-changer in this ongoing census saga.
But it is the extreme conclusion of a far more serious and consequential development - the politicization of the public service.
Read Alex Himelfarb on the topic, a former Clerk of the Privy Council (Canada’s top [...]

There aren’t many stories like this one.
You have to go back half a century, to Diefenbaker and Coyne, to find a parallel. Then too, a Prime Minister increasingly viewed as overly controlling insisted on an unworkable policy until the Governor of the Bank of Canada had no choice but to step down, in an attempt [...]

Last week someone sent me an email with a subject line that read “Emergency Singalong”
They had watched the evolution of the census story with dismay and decided it was time to turn things around.
Cleverly rewriting the lyrics to Garry and the Playboy’s 1960s hit Count Me In, a group assembled at his house [...]

Dr. Bill Stanbury — a regular contributor to the Hill Times, professor emeritus at UBC, economist and self-described as centre-right — has urged me to work with him to compile a list of every organization who has taken a public stand on opposing the government’s decision to ax the census long-form questionnaire, and replace it [...]

Since Stephen Harper and David Cameron seem to be on the same wavelength, and the UK thinks it can trash census and turn to isources like credit records for its information needs, the story below on privacy, from Alberta, may be of possible interest.
Report of an Investigation into the Security, Collection and Retention of [...]

While Canadians tried to talk census sense to their rulers, here’s what the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, had to say about the importance of the census on Sunday July 11:
“Population data helps leaders and policy-makers to make informed decisions about policies and programmes to reduce poverty and hunger, and advance education, health [...]

Today a truly surprising assembly of organizations – definitely not a coalition – made a group request for a meeting with the Minister who has been put in charge of executing the decision to ax the Census long-form questionnaire. Their objective? “We understand that the far-reaching impacts of this decision may not have [...]

The Globe and Mail has allowed their poll about Census “intrusiveness” to stand for the third day.
By 10 a.m. on Sunday over 32,000 people had registered their vote with the newspaper. Undoubtedly this is some kind of record for the daily Globe poll, which got 222 votes for the previous one.
The question is highly [...]

Jeffrey Simpson’s column yesterday nailed it.
There is only one reason this Census situation is so senselessly white-hot: the government’s position. Its radical ideology and stunning stubbornness have raised the stakes alarmingly high.
There must be plenty of Conservatives who are recoiling at the shenanigans of these so-called Conservatives.
Every time Tony Clement [...]

Yesterday a CCPA board member alerted my Exec Director that the Globe and Mail poll for the day was on the Census, noting that, very early in the day, the poll was running 2 votes yes for every vote no. The polling question:
Do you think the long-form census questionnaire is an [...]

I was wondering where our fellow researchers and analysts stood on this topic. They were unusually silent, even though I had invited them to participate in a group process requesting a meeting with the Minister and PM, a group which, by the way, seemed to cross all boundaries and divides. I stand corrected. [...]

Jewish, Evangelical groups oppose census change

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Politics/20100715/census-backlash-100715/
And this just in: Stephen’s cat Cheddar opposes the changes too. He’s cheesed!
A colleague notes:”If you have the Jews, the Evangelicals, the provinces, growing parts of the business lobby, the academics, Quebec, the City of Calgary, the Community Foundations, the United Ways, the CLC, etc, there’s not a [...]

SHEESH! I’ve never seen anything like this, have you?
My fave - Kelly McParland’s Full Comment, at the bottom. Hilarious and right on the money.
THURSDAY CLIPPINGS
“NEWS HOUR FINAL”
Global BC and Global Ontario
Broadcast Date: Thursday July 15 2010
The Harper government says it’s making changes to the census based on widespread privacy complaints but as Shirlee Engel tells [...]

Here’s the media round-up from over the weekend and today’s press. You will note almost all the stories are against the Harper decision to cut the Census long-form questionnaire.
However the push-back-in-print has begun. Clark’s piece from the Province [BC] is an ode to libertarianism, and Ditchburn’s story for CP, “Census consensus among [...]

From strategies on austerity to shutting down public discourse, Prime Minister Harper seems to have found a new BFF at the G8 meetings.
David Cameron’s new tough-as-nails coalition government is planning to scrap the Census in the U.K., which has been taken every 10 years for the past 200 years.  It is viewed as “expensive and [...]

The sound of backlash to the government’s decision on cutting the Census long-form questionnaire continues to rumble across the country.
Tuesday’s Globe and Mail published a story on the topic as well as a column by Andre Picard which was drawn primarily from the open letter on this blog.
The next day the sound of outrage came [...]