Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Clement lies about Survey

Well this was no surprise.

The Star

The Globe and Mail

So the Conservatives lied about StatsCan's support of their plan to make the mandatory long form census into a voluntary survey.

Turns out that StatsCan was opposed to the idea since it deteriorates the value of the census and makes it more difficult to use the data as a benchmark against other surveys.

The two parts of this story that I really liked were how the documents surrounding the government's decision were redacted as though they contained some secret material (about statistics).

And how Harper's office asked former head of StatsCan Munir Sheikh to alter his statement saying that the new survey would not be as valuable as the traditional census; to "StatsCan is confident that it will meet the needs of a broad range of users.

Which completely conveys the same message and makes me wonder what other areas the Harper government is filling our lives with such truthiness.

1 comment:

  1. An example of Harper's impulse to total control, I think.

    ReplyDelete