Census - Mandatory or Voluntary

[nicky10013]

As an apparently strong supporter of mandatory long forms perhaps you could illustrate the damage which could result from making this form voluntary.

I'm looking for a specific example, not broad generalizations like "Without mandatory census long forms all life in the universe will come to an end!!!!!"

Pretty much every expert agrees that not making the long form mandatory would result in a highly skewed and unreliable sample. To get the required number of responses to get even close to the same amount of accuracy, stats can would have to spend on average about 5 million more per census. So not only is it less accurate, it costs more as well.

If Harper can't understand actual rational, non-political arguments re: the census, maybe this will point him in the right direction.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/retirees-wary-of-tory-census-move/article1651910/

Apparently seniors, who vote CPC in droves, absolutely hate this. In a poll of senior citizens, Harper has lost 10% of support in the community, moving from 41% in June to 31% in July.

[Alta4ever]

Pretty much every expert agrees that not making the long form mandatory would result in a highly skewed and unreliable sample. To get the required number of responses to get even close to the same amount of accuracy, stats can would have to spend on average about 5 million more per census. So not only is it less accurate, it costs more as well.

If Harper can't understand actual rational, non-political arguments re: the census, maybe this will point him in the right direction.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/retirees-wary-of-tory-census-move/article1651910/

Apparently seniors, who vote CPC in droves, absolutely hate this. In a poll of senior citizens, Harper has lost 10% of support in the community, moving from 41% in June to 31% in July.

I wonder how the polling companies can get their data with out the poll being mandatory.

[Argus]

Pretty much every expert agrees that not making the long form mandatory would result in a highly skewed and unreliable sample.

So that's a no?

Apparently seniors, who vote CPC in droves, absolutely hate this. In a poll of senior citizens, Harper has lost 10% of support in the community, moving from 41% in June to 31% in July.

You apparently don't see the laughable contradiction of you using a voluntary poll to show that voluntary polls should not be used.

[nicky10013]

So that's a no?

You apparently don't see the laughable contradiction of you using a voluntary poll to show that voluntary polls should not be used.

Considering you deleted a whole bunch of my statement at the beginning proves that your dubious response the second is no fluke. Clearly, with the fact that it costs both more money and is innacurate is obviously the reason to have the census remain the same. I said if Harper goes his usual route, this round of polling (the voracity which is indeed up in the air, but that doesn't matter to him because it's all politics) indicates there may be some action. That clearly wouldn't be my reasoning, it would be his.

[CANADIEN]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/canada/StatisCan+Compromise+census+battle/3323368/story.html

These recommendations, from a very reputable body, are sound. They address the major concerns about the mandatory long form.

The planning for the 2011 census is well underway. Let it go ahead as presently structured and initiate the changes leading up to the next census.

Sound recommendation indeed. Which makes the government decision even more senseless.

[CANADIEN]

I wonder how many out side of the political geeks around here really give a sh__ about this issue.

Let`s see... the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the Canadian Evangelical Fellowship, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Greater Toronto United Way, the Toronto Board of Trade, TD Bank...

Edited July 27, 2010 by CANADIEN

[CANADIEN]

I wonder how the polling companies can get their data with out the poll being mandatory.

Indeed, those polls, like any statistical survey conducting (even by StatsCan) outside the census is voluntary. Now, I am sure that you will argue that if these surveys can be reliable, why wouldn`t be a voluntary census? And one the face of it, you would seem to have a point.

A response to this argument was provided by Charles Gordon, economics professor at Laval University, ironically enough in a Twitter argument with... Tony Clements.

Survey and polls carry their own statistical bias... no matter the side of the sample, some groups of people will be over or under representated. To minimize this, statisticians wieght the sample and the data, adjusting the sample on the basis of other statistical information available. As Professor Gordon put it, "Other voluntary surveys get their weights from the census".

Without a form of non-voluntary form of data gathering (census or other), polls and survey lacks a weighting mechanism essential to ensure a certain reliability. That, in and by itself, is not a justification for or against a mandatory census or other form of data gathering, but it make more sense that "ìf poll are voluntary, why not the census"

Edited July 27, 2010 by CANADIEN

[CANADIEN]

IBM and the Holocaust is a book by investigative journalist Edwin Black which details the business dealings of the German subsidiary of International Business Machines (IBM) with the government of Adolf Hitler during the 1930s and the years of World War II. In the book Black illustrates the way in which IBM's technology helped facilitate Nazi genocide against the Jewish people through generation and tabulation of punch cards based upon national census data.

The nazis also used roads, railroads, the radio, telephone, typewriters, cinema, the media in planning, promoting and carrying their policy. No doubt they would have used iphones, DVD players, laptops and the Internet had these tools existed then. Let`s ban all of them.

Edited July 27, 2010 by CANADIEN

[Alta4ever]

The nazis also used roads, railroads, the radio, telephone, typewriters, cinema, the media in planning, promoting and carrying their policy. No doubt they would have used iphones, DVD players, laptops and the Internet had these tools existed then. Let`s ban all of them.

Your an idiot, who obviously has no use for history, read the damn book and learn something.

[Smallc]

That history doesn't apply here. We're not going to turn into Nazi Germany because of the census.

[Alta4ever]

That history doesn't apply here. We're not going to turn into Nazi Germany because of the census.

Who said that we were turning into Nazi Germany, but is an example of what census data can be used for by a contemptible government. Do you know what a future government will bring?

[Smallc]

Who said that we were turning into Nazi Germany, but is an example of what census data can be used for by a contemptible government. Do you know what a future government will bring?

You say who said we're turning into Nazi Germany...and then follow it up with a, "but we might." Paranoid much?

[Alta4ever]

You say who said we're turning into Nazi Germany...and then follow it up with a, "but we might." Paranoid much?

Really I said that go back and quote it, but since I never said it, we know you are inferring. The gathering of this information is not required. The book highlights how a census data is used and tabulated.

[Smallc]

Census data in Canada is used for a variety of things, many of them (such as the formation of public policy, and city planning) are very useful. It is extremely necessary and to think otherwise is to pretend to know more than experts in hundreds of different fields who have voiced opposition to making the census mandatory.

[Alta4ever]

Census data in Canada is used for a variety of things, many of them (such as the formation of public policy, and city planning) are very useful. It is extremely necessary and to think otherwise is to pretend to know more than experts in hundreds of different fields who have voiced opposition to making the census mandatory.

Right, civil servants protecting their jobs. Nothing more nothing less then vested interests.

[Smallc]

Right, civil servants protecting their jobs. Nothing more nothing less then vested interests.

No, it isn't only civil servants. You're showing ignorance...unless you consider things like the TD Bank and the CMA to be public service organizations....and that's only two of the literally hundreds of organizations.

[Alta4ever]

Census data in Canada is used for a variety of things, many of them (such as the formation of public policy, and city planning) are very useful.

That would be civil service.

[Alta4ever]

No, it isn't only civil servants. You're showing ignorance...unless you consider things like the TD Bank and the CMA to be public service organizations....and that's only two of the literally hundreds of organizations.

Oh my the TD might have to collect some of its data on its own. I feel so sorry for them.

[Smallc]

You really don't understand the implications for economic and social information for the country, do you? The census is how both governments and private organizations measure long term trends and changes in the economy, the population, and the country. This is important stuff...and a few conservatives who think that the government is coming for their guns and their money shouldn't be allowed to stand in the way.

[Bryan]

You really don't understand the implications for economic and social information for the country, do you? The census is how both governments and private organizations measure long term trends and changes in the economy, the population, and the country. This is important stuff...and a few conservatives who think that the government is coming for their guns and their money shouldn't be allowed to stand in the way.

Why can't the government use the information they already have other departments like the CRA? Why can't private organizations collect their own data?

You keep saying people don't understand, but you aren't presenting anything that even remotely qualifies the types of questions that are on the long form as necessary.

[Smallc]

Why can't you simply fill out the census? If a long form census isn't necessary, why are we still having one that is being sent to more people in order to try to compensate for it not being mandatory?

There are obviously large groups of people in the know that think it's necessary. That's all I really need to know.

[Jack Weber]

You really don't understand the implications for economic and social information for the country, do you? The census is how both governments and private organizations measure long term trends and changes in the economy, the population, and the country. This is important stuff...and a few conservatives who think that the government is coming for their guns and their money shouldn't be allowed to stand in the way.

You mean the "kooks on the loose" who think we are one step away from a Stalinist dictatorship because of those Eastern Leftists?

Edited July 27, 2010 by Jack Weber

[Smallc]

Yes, those ones.

[CANADIEN]

Your an idiot, who obviously has no use for history, read the damn book and learn something.

This coming from the guy who, when the mindless "government has no business asking these questions" line won`t work, has nothing better to come with than "read a book that includes information on how the nazis were using and tabulating census data" because "we can never be sure that there will never be a government like that again".

This is an idiotic argument. Might as well say that computers are dangerous because the Nazis used tabulation machines and another government like might pop up a day.

As for the book you suggest, its thesis was also in a movie about 4-5 years ago (darn me, the title escapes me right now). Guess what, knowledge that the nazis used the census and early tabulation techniques did not convince me that the census is a bad thing then, and it won`t now. Unlike you, I understand history enough to understand that the problem was not the census, but the people using it.

Edited July 27, 2010 by CANADIEN

[Hydraboss]

Why can't you simply fill out the census?

Because no one has ever come up will a compelling argument for me to do so, except "Just simply fill it out, keep answering questions and quit asking questions."

If a long form census isn't necessary, why are we still having one that is being sent to more people in order to try to compensate for it not being mandatory?

That would be the "politics" being played ala minority government.

There are obviously large groups of people in the know that think it's necessary.

I see this as very, very simple. The government puts into law that any and all information collected is for the sole use of government sectors. The CRA does it (in theory). In law that no information is to be made freely available or sold to any NGO for any purpose. This way they get their information for policy decisions, and all the "think tanks" can pay to do their own research - which will be voluntary. I'm sure the United Way will whine because they can't have their free statistics, but then, I couldn't give a rat's ass about the United Way. Nor could a ton of other people. C D Howe can pay IPSOS for the information they want. So can every other charity (or group of charities) and policy group out there. I shouldn't be on the hook as a taxpayer for the cost of NGO operations.

That's all I really need to know.

And that is why so many of us find you hard to take seriously. You don't question what the Mighty and Powerful Oz asks. Government to your young mind is this well-meaning, benign entity that is out to save it's people. Trust in them and you will prosper.