UnseatHarper.ca
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Tony Clement
Dismissing Canadian Voices
Education is to be valued, right? We want our leaders to take advantage of all of the best knowledge, research and analysis available before they act, don’t we? Of course we do. The question is, does Industry Minister Tony Clement agree? It would appear not.
When Stephen Harper prorogued parliament at the end of 2009 many people felt that he did so for illegitimate reasons. It was felt by many that he did it primarily to avoid turning documents concerning Afghan detainees over to our elected Members of Parliament, as demanded by a motion passed by the House of Commons. In response, more than 100 academics, including several who specialize in political science, signed a letter that accused Mr. Harper of violating "the trust of the Canadian people [and] thus acting anti-democratically."
What was Mr. Clement’s response to this letter? He dismissed it as merely the utterings of the elites. So, apparently, if you’re a professor and you disagree with the Harper Government, you’re a second-class citizen in Mr. Clement’s eyes. Mr. Clement went on to say “It may not be what the chattering classes want, but we're not here to govern on behalf of the chattering classes.” (see “Academics slam suspension of Parliament”, cbc.ca)
Think about this as well: A well-paid, Government of Canada cabinet minister who, unlike ordinary citizens, is able to introduce legislation in Parliament and, without consulting Parliament, enact regulations under existing legislation—one of less than 40 people to hold that position—referred to more than 100 professors as members of the elite. That is almost the definition of ironic.
Those aren’t the only people that Mr. Clement dismissed out-of-hand. At about the same time, more than 20,000 people rallied across Canada to protest prorogation. And a Facebook group set up as a forum to protest the prorogation attracted about 250,000 members at its peak.
Should those voices of concerned Canadians have been considered? Mr. Clement didn’t think so. He dismissed them as merely the chattering class. Again, it would appear that if you disagree with the Harper Government Mr. Clement thinks that you are not worth listening to.
Misrepresenting Statistics Canada
In the past, the Canadian census included a long-form version that was sent to a random sample of about 20 percent of Canadian households. In the middle of 2010, the Harper Government put a stop to that. On the order of the Harper Government, henceforth everyone will be required to fill in the short-form census and the long-form census will be voluntary. However, the long-form will go to 30 percent, rather than 20 percent of households to attempt to get the same number of responses.
Most statisticians were outraged at the Harper Government’s decision to axe the long-form version of the census. They pointed out that because response was voluntary, the sample would no longer be random and, therefore, no longer representative of the population as a whole. And all across Canada, businesses, provincial and municipal governments, interest groups, academics, public agencies and NGOs – as well as civil servants themselves - expressed concern about the effect that this would have on the quality of data on which they depend.
In fact, nearly 500 individual groups across the country spoke out against the government’s dismantling of the mandatory long form census. By contrast, only a handful of groups and individuals publicly expressed their support of the government’s decision.
Not to worry, Mr. Clement told us. According to him, Statistics Canada itself told him that the change would not seriously impact the quality of the census results. “We’ve come up with a way that is statistically valid, that StatsCan feels can work,” Clement said.
It turns out that was not true. In fact, the head of Statistics Canada, Munir Sheikh, resigned in protest rather than let that misstatement stand. In a media release issued on July 21, 2010, Dr. Sheikh said: “I want to take this opportunity to comment on a technical statistical issue which has become the subject of media discussion. This relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census. It can not.”
The fallout from scrapping the mandatory long form census has continued unabated for months. In the meantime, the next nation-wide census will be undertaken in May, 2011. In the face of all of the opposition that has besieged him, Mr. Clement told a House of Commons committee in August that he had a plan - the government budgeted “an additional $30-million cost for a public campaign launched to convince Canadians to fill out the questionnaire.” But even there Tony Clement likes to stretch the truth. As the Toronto Star reported in December of 2010, half that $30 million is actually going to be spent to cover printing and postage for the additional surveys as well as for two extra questions requiring an extra page on the short form census.
All this, despite the fact that he acknowledges “many Canadians, including the very rich, the very poor and immigrants, might not fill out a voluntary survey, and thus skew the results.”
Tony Clement dismissed the concerns of both academics and ordinary Canadians regarding the Harper Government’s arbitrary suspension of Parliament.
He dismissed (and attempted to cover up) the concerns of both experts at Statistics Canada and countless users of the census data regarding the arbitrary discontinuation of the long-form census.
Tony Clement seems to believe that it is in someone’s best interests to cancel dissent by simply dismissing the views of experts, intellectuals and concerned citizens and by keeping Canada in the dark. Could those interests be his own?
