(Vancouver Courier, August 24, 2011)
“We have tried on many occasions to contact your household to complete your census.”
Yes they have. A stack of yellow envelopes, stamped by Statistics Canada, bears witness on my kitchen table. I received my first mandatory short-form census in May. Over the summer, the packages kept coming. A yellow envelope. An orange census form. A letter of admonishment in stern bureaucratese. “Please note that completing your census questionnaire is mandatory under the Statistics Act, and by the same law, the information you provide will be kept confidential and used only for statistical purpose.”
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Last summer, the federal Conservatives axed the mandatory long-form census, which pried into the personal lives of Canadians, and replaced it with a voluntary National Household Survey, which pries—albeit, more politely—into the personal lives of Canadians. The media, sensing proof of a “secret agenda,” courted complaint from census advocates, namely Big Government backers bent on social engineering. The census, they said, makes Canada work. “It’s not just the multicultural programs,” howled pro-Liberal pollster Frank Graves. “The whole question of employment equity in the workforce, which is a huge issue, is based on analysis of this [census data], things like legislated employment equity.” The relentless media narrative elevated the census to sacred status on par with the Constitution. However, the Tories stood firm and the voluntary National Household Survey was distributed to 4.5 million households this spring.
End of story? Not even close.
Despite high-minded talk about privacy and liberty, Harper and company retained the mandatory short-form census. It’s brief (four pages) yet invasive (marital status, sexuality, language preference) and far exceeds the basic requirements of a census. Webster’s defines census as: “a periodic governmental enumeration of population.” Census history dates back to Moses who counted the Israelites based on orders from above. Caesar Augustus tallied the Roman world, mainly for tax purposes. During the Second World War, Hitler used census data seized in occupied countries to help deport Jews to their death. On the homefront, the U.S. Census Bureau worked in concert with Washington to locate and intern Japanese-Americans.
Speaking of war. Since 2004, the Canadian federal government has outsourced census automation (scanning completed forms, compiling data) to Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers, which operates a lucrative sideline business in information technology. As part of the American military-industrial complex, Lockheed Martin supports the War on Terror where personal information of suspected terrorists is sought worldwide. Incidentally, during a brazen cyber attack in May, computer hackers infiltrated Lockheed Martin’s security network. The extent of the breach has not been disclosed.
Despite all of that, Statistics Canada says your census information is safe. For argument’s sake, let’s say that’s true. That Lockheed Martin, if apprised of a major terrorist threat emanating from Canadian soil, will stick to its confidentiality agreement. And that our bloated federal bureaucracy, which was raided by Chinese hackers last winter, is capable of securing your personal information. The census in its current form remains unnecessary, and more importantly, damaging. It provides statistical ammunition for every government program and taxpayer-funded non-profit from St. John’s to Victoria. Using census data, any skilled bureaucrat at any level of government can justify their pet project come appropriation time. The census doesn’t make Canada work, it makes government grow. Census advocates claim public services such as healthcare are inexorably linked to census data. Funding decisions, they say, rely on demographic trends. But much of the information gleaned from the mandatory short-form census (marital status, sexuality, language preference) reaches far beyond basic determinative medical factors such as age and location.
So the yellow stack on my kitchen table will continue to grow. According to the Statistics Act, census scofflaws face “a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars” or imprisonment “not exceeding three months.” A man came to my home last month and another two weeks ago. They’re leaving messages on my answering machine. The last yellow envelope was delivered in person and left open for my convenience. It fell in pieces through my mail slot. I’ve been marked for registration by the government machine.
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