Vested Interests and the Census

Here in the Great White North, which is melting in record heat, there is a furor over the Conservative government's plan to scrap the long-form census in 2011.  The Conservatives say they are doing so because Canadians feel that the long-form is a violation of privacy rights.  The curious thing is that the Privacy Commissioner reports that her office has received all of three such complaints in the past decade, none of which have been upheld.  Nor was she even consulted on the decision. Similarly, Statistics Canada has also made no mention of privacy complaints in its reports.  

Since the announcement, critics have lambasted the government's decision.  Not surprisingly, the opposition has been extremely vocal.  Dissent has also come from academics, the Canadian Medical Association, bankers, even church groups.  Newspaper editorials have also been vicious.  And yet the government won't back down.

Today, however, the Chief Economist of the Fraser Institute, a right-of-centre think tank based in Vancouver, has come out swinging.  In an interview with PostMediaNews, itself a right-of-centre news organisation, Niels Veldhuis has declared that those opposing the government's decision represent "vested interest groups."  He further states that "This is what should be worrying average Canadians — this information is used by central planners to plan how to tinker with the lives of Canadians."  

Well, no kidding.  Government policy and funding is formulated in part based on census data.  But funding for health care, education and various other necessary government policies are hardly designed to "tinker with the lives of Canadians."

But Velhuis has an even better idea: the government should do market research into what it is Canadians want and need from their government.  Seriously.  Surveys.  Focus groups. This is democracy?  

More to the point, Veldhuis is attempting to shut down debate, dismissing the majority of Canadians who have no problem with the long form census, as "special interest groups."  It would seem to me here that the Fraser Institute and the Conservative government - a minority government, I might add - are the vested interest group.