More census talk at committees, Meagan Fitzpatrick on PostMedia News,  politics and the nation

Two House of Commons committees are spending their mornings talking about the cancellation of the long-form census, the issue that just won’t die. Last week, the Status of Women committee had a hearing on it (you can read my story on it here) and they are back at it today. Among the witnesses are representatives from the Canadian Council on Social Development, Federation quebecoise des professeures et professeurs d’university, someone from a consulting firm, and the senior vice-president and chief demographer from Environics Analytics, a member of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association. The executive director of that group, meanwhile, is over at the Human Resources, Skills and Social Development committee, along with a City of Toronto councillor, the Chinese Canadian National Council and a few other witnesses.

There is a long list of groups and organizations that are opposed to the cancellation of the long-form census. The website datalibre.ca in fact, says there are more than 350 of them that have spoken out in opposition to the government’s decision.  I’m not sure how many of them the various committees plan on hearing from, but you can bet with each of them MPs will keep hearing the same refrain — canceling the long-form census was a bad, bad idea, the new voluntary National Household Survey will not produce enough reliable data, and the government should reverse course and bring back the long-form.

Women’s groups decry end of long-form census