Tories won’t compromise on census

Les Whittington Ottawa Bureau The Star.com: Aug 3

OTTAWA—The federal Conservatives are rejecting a compromise that would allow Statistics Canada to continue using the compulsory long-form census while eliminating the threat of jail time for those who refuse to fill it out. “We’ve been clear that we’re opposed to the mandatory nature of this and forcing people by some criminal sanction (to complete the form),Day went further, suggesting that there may be no need at all for a long-form census that asks detailed questions about employment hours, housing, transportation matters and other issues currently covered by the longer, 40-page census questionnaire. He said the growth of information available in the electronic age may have eliminated the need for a written census every five years. However, Day did not explain how Ottawa would gather this data on citizens and how it would deal with the privacy rights of Canadians who are the subject of electronic information-gathering by government.