It isn' touched on here, but listening to Clement on The House this morning, it seems to me that he pretty clearly stated that the move to eliminate penalties on all StatsCan surveys was a step down the road to a voluntary short form. Again, the CBC's story on the interview doesn't mention this, but I am sure of what I heard.
Make of it what you will.
It's part of the 'dumbing down Canada' strategy that the HarperCon$ have had for a while.
ReplyDeleteRemove any valid, impartial statistics and they can invent whatever they want to justify their policy agenda. (which, I can just about guarantee is not good for Canadians ... unless of course you like the idea of living in a police state)
I'm sure you meant The House, but yeah, it kinda sounded like The Hour with Strombo. :/
ReplyDeleteThis is the "Roger Douglas" model of doing business. When Douglas did his "crash through" economic reforms in New Zealand the one piece of information that continued to float around out there was the NZ Census data. Subsequent census taking, (which has always been less accurate than StatsCan), shone a bright light on how much damage Douglas' "Chicago School" economic policies had actually done.
ReplyDeleteNew Zealand has been attempting to rebuild the critical infrastructure of that country (totally dismantled by Douglas) for decades. Without census data the people would have had no statistical weapon to use to force their elected government to respond.
When Douglas himself had to admit that a social underclass had developed as a result of his policies it was not lost on movement-conservatives (a polite name for an odious crowd) that leaving a weapon like accurate numbers in the hands of the opposition would cost them power.
Thanks, Noronic. In my defense, it is an hour long.
ReplyDelete