Letter-to-Editor by Donovan Carter, regarding Labour Force Survey
http://www.comoxvalleyrecord.com/opinion/letters/135129418.html
Comox Valley Record
- posted Dec 6, 2011 at 3:00 PM
Are Tories getting data via backdoor route?
Dear editor,
I have been in contact with the constituency office of Vancouver Island North MP John Duncan regarding the receipt of notice from Statistics Canada that the occupants of my household are obligated to participate in the Canadian Labour Force Survey.
Non-compliance with the Statistics Act could result in prosecution resulting in penalty of $500 or three months in prison or both.
I wish to surrender to Mr. Duncan’s very apparent partisan manipulation of the law. I believe he should personally have me arrested and detained for prosecution.
Recently, the Conservative government rather arbitrarily ended mandatory participation in the Long Form Canadian Census. However, upon receiving the form letter from Statistics Canada and the brochure for the Labour Force Survey, I was alarmed to read in the brochure, which is not mentioned in the form letter, that, “The survey sometimes includes supplementary questions on special interest topics such as energy use, housing, education, retirement and income and expenditures.”
I was also alarmed at the lack of mention in the brochure of mandatory participation in the Labour Force Survey, which is mentioned in the form letter. It seems as though there is a deliberate attempt to keep the general public uninformed of the threat of imprisonment the government still wields.
It is my assertion that Mr. Duncan’s “New Canadian Government” is playing fast and very very loose with the law. What they deliberately sacrificed in relaxing requirements for mandatory participation in the Long Form Census, they have reclaimed by devious use of the “back door” of the Labour Force Survey.
(INSERT: the following high-lighted text is what StatsCan is saying. Please see Are StatsCan Surveys mandatory? for the full text of Section 8 (it’s short). I don’t think this is a reasonable interpretation of what Section 8 says. Donovan Carter continues ….)
I say this because the descriptor of the Statistics Act states; “Section 8 permits the minister responsible for Statistics Canada to order that participation in a survey be on a voluntary basis. No such order has been signed for the Labour Force Survey, therefore, participation is mandatory.”
When a government, by threat of imprisonment, attempts to obtain information through “…supplementary questions on special interest topics…” which have nothing to do with the labour force and were the sorts of questions asked in the Long Form Census then it is my assertion that Mr. Duncan and his “New Canadian Government” navigate the waters of governance with a broken moral compass. Therefore, they must be held to account.
As a good citizen, I am ordinarily very willing to assist the government in the effective and efficient administration of the country, even if I am compelled to do so under threat of imprisonment. As a good citizen it is my responsibility to speak up when politicians abuse their responsibility for “Peace, order and good government.”
To this end, I must seriously consider non-compliance with the Statistics Act and subsequent imprisonment as a means of holding up Mr. Duncan and his “New Canadian Government” for public scrutiny.
Although rhetorical, my concluding comment is that building more prisons at a time of declining crime rates appears to be necessary to cover the tracks of this government’s obvious hypocrisy on this issue.
Donovan Carter,
Comox