“We need the CCPA to remind us that our dreams of a decent, egalitarian society are reasonable — indeed that with a little work, they are practical. And I love that practicality, that protection of the dream of the possible.”
— Naomi Klein
National Office | Update
September 28, 2010
On June 30th, the CCPA's Senior Economist Armine Yalnizyan was among the initial voices leading the criticism over the government decision to eliminate the census long-form questionnaire.
Since then, a groundswell of alarm has turned into a wall of opposition, across the political spectrum. Stay tuned to this page for all the CCPA's updates on the topic.
Updates
- Armine's open letter to the Honourable Tony Clement, Ministry of Industry and Minister Responsible for Statistics Canada and Munir Sheikh, Chief Statistician, Statistics Canada. [June 30]
- Listen to Armine appearing on CBC radio's As It Happens. [July 5]
- Question Period for Census Decision asks “Where’s the beef?” on the privacy complaints [July 7]
- An account of the growing backlash to the policy, in Rolling Thunder Census Review. [July 9]
- Connecting the dots between Harper’s announcement and the one made by David Cameron in the UK just a few days later in Stephen Harper’s New BFF [July 10]
- A media roundup of the latest top news stories and editorials on the issue. [July 12]
- Part two of the media roundup [July 15]
- Christian and Jewish groups join the debate in New twist on census story [July 15]
- Armine comments as The Fraser Institute finally weighs in on the Census [July 16]
- Tracking the Globe and Mail On-Line Poll on the Census and its “intrusive” nature [July 17]
- Taking a look at The Globe’s Experiment in Census-Taking [July 18]
- The Anti-Information Information Society, Brought To You By the Anti-Government Government [July 18]
- Marc Lee’s Census and Inequality blog [July 19]
- Strange Bedfellows Invite Clement to Work With Them Towards Census Solution [July 19]
- Armine writes a commentary in The Hill Times: Harper know best, or does he? [July 19]
- The base of support for the census decision is pretty narrow. Read about Stephen Harper’s Gamble [July 20]
- The real privacy issue that Harper should focus on: credit info [July 20]
- While Harper weakens Census info, the United Nations thinks it is critical. [July 20]
- A little midsummer night’s entertainment. Sing-along, laugh, scream with horror at the Census shenanigans. [July 20]
- Armine appears with Laval Economist Stephen Gordon on Globeandmail.com to answer questions on Canada's long-form census debate. [July 22]
- Is the resignation of the Chief Statistician a gamechanger? How the resolution to the Census saga could now unfold. [July 23]
- Former Clerk of Privy Council remarks on Sheikh’s resignation and the “integrity and technical competence” of the public service [July 23]
- A businessman weighs in, and notes even Clement uses census long form data [July 23]
- The Hill Times commentary piece listed above has been updated. Click here for the updated version. [July 26]
- For a continually updated roll-call of who has joined The Resistance to the Census decision, click here.
- For the bomb du jour, check out how Stephen Harper relied on Census data for his 1991 master’s thesis on “political business cycles”. Sadly, that was then, and this is now. [July 26]
- Watch for this story in the Hill Times on Monday. A sneak peek at next week’s news cycle on the census: Enter the provinces [July 29]
- Is this the core of an exit strategy for the Conservatives? [July 29]
- Does the Census invade your privacy? Read about how it works and other alternatives to collecting information [July 30]
- For a quick update on the top ten stories in the last 10 days, and how a court challenge could shape the future of the census saga, click here [August 12]
- In today’s day and age, everyone wants to see and not be seen. How does the Google Zeitgeist inform the Census debate? [August 19]
- It’s been a month since Munir Sheikh stepped down. Here’s how to select the next Chief Statistician of Canada. [August 19]
- Conservative guru Tom Flanagan weighs in on the census, and Armine responds [August 20]
- A letter to Prime Minister from David Dodge, Ivan Fellegi, Mel Cappe and Alex Himelfarb outlines how best to save Statistics Canada. [September 22, 2010]
- Summer is over, and the Harper government wants you to think it’s too late to fix the census. Not so. This article, published in the Hill Times on September 27, 2010, shows the many upcoming events that could lead to the reversal of Harper’s decision. [September 24, 2010]