I circulated this piece by Murray Dobbin, but I do not agree with it. Susan Thompson wrote an excellent rebuttal, see the next posting. The issue re-surfaces in summer 2010 after the Harper Government announced that the census long form is no longer mandatory.
Many thanks to Alan for sending this in.
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The following article has been sent to you by:
Alan Appleby and they provided the following comments:
Hello Sandra: I appreciated you sending out the material last week. I had written to StatsCan several years ago about contracting out. I found this article by Murray Dobbins, who always seems pretty practical, presented another side of the issue, and one I can identify with as a user of census materials in my work. /Alan
To view the article online click here: (Link no longer valid http://rabble.ca/redirect.php3?ID=7605 )
The Census? Count me in
Our government has been hijacked — we should be fighting to take it back. We can’t do that by demonizing it. That’s why when it comes to the Census you should count yourself in.
>by Murray Dobbin
May 9, 2006
There’s a tug-of-war going on amongst progressive activists on the question of whether to boycott — or give minimum co-operation to — the Census, due to be completed by May 16. Lockheed Martin Canada (along with IBM) won a contract to provide software and hardware for the Census. Its status as one of the world’s largest arms manufacturers in combination with the U.S.
Patriot Act is at the core of the call for non-co-operation.
The principal organizer and promoter of the boycott of the Census comes in the form of the website CountMeOut whose motto is “Empowering every Canadian to oppose NAFTA and deep integration through minimum co-operation” with the Census.
The problem with this notion of empowerment and the call for minimal co-operation is it’s just the wrong strategy, targeting the wrong agency. A successful boycott would have no impact whatever on Lockheed Martin but would hurt one of the most important government agencies we have working for us.
As for who would be happiest with such a successful campaign, think Stephen Harper — and every other radical right wing politician in the country who is dedicated to dismantling democratic governance.
StatsCan is a key institution of Canadian democracy because hundreds of researchers in social movement organizations, progressive think tanks, unions and NGOs rely on its information to lobby, criticize, expose and otherwise hold to account, the governments of the land. For a social activist, whacking StatsCan is like smacking yourself in the face. Perhaps this is why the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives CCPA has come out in favour of full co-operation with the Census after investigating the issue and getting a detailed briefing from StatsCan on its privacy protection measures. [I should acknowledge here that I am on the board of the CCPA.]
First, let’s look at the main arguments of both sides of this issue. When StatsCan first announced its contract with Lockheed Martin it was clear that this giant U.S.-based corporation could have access to the data collected for the Census. Immediately, all sorts of activists and NGOs raised the alarm, pointing out that because of the Patriot Act, Lockheed Martin would be obliged to secretly provide a whole slew of U.S. intelligence agencies access to information about Canadians — or face huge penalties. Oddly, no one raised the same concern about IBM.
Remarkably, given the usual response of the federal government and its agencies to such protest, StatsCan changed the contract because of the complaints. Lockheed Martin will, as a result, have no access to any of the information gathered, have no staff involved in the program as data is being collected, and the whole Census process will be in a closed system with no connections to any other government information systems.
According to CountMeOut, even though Lockheed Martin is now technically blocked from access to any Census information “We believe it would be entirely possible for Lockheed Martin to plant a ‘Trojan horse’ within the Census software, to secretly allow the CIA to tap into Canadian Census data.” How is not made clear. The Census is not a website to be hacked.
StatsCan has developed an excellent reputation for guarding the privacy of the information gathered in the Census. The people who work there are dedicated public employees, committed to their jobs and to Canadians.
The question isn’t whether or not Canadians should be concerned that a corporation the CCPA lists as one of the Ten Worst Corporations in the World should be providing software for the Census. The question is what we should be doing strategically to oppose corporatism and the growth of the security state in general.
CountMeOut — not satisfied with the changes to the contract — now must rely on conspiracy theories to maintain its position that we should not co-operate with the Census. Are their conspiracies afoot? I am sure there are — especially arising out of the paranoid and dangerous Bush administration. Yet having said that, our politics must guard against falling into the trap of the politics of fear. Conspiracies are by definition unknowable — and therefore unchallengeable. Concocting them disempowers people. All it would take is a dozen declared conspiracies to take up all the energy and resources of Canadian activists.
There is no lack of political work to be done. The challenges we face in stopping Stephen Harper and his government are so serious and so formidable, I don’t think we can waste energy on a campaign that will do literally nothing to expose his sinister agenda. There’s enough bad stuff out there — obvious stuff, documented, already happening, about to happen — without feeding people’s fear that there are also conspiracies that we have no power to affect.
CountMeOut says that even if the privacy issue were resolved we should still refuse to co-operate with the Census because of “…deep integration, Canadian sovereignty, Lockheed Martin itself, and job losses [at StatsCan].” But this is hardly an effective strategy regarding any of these issues — and again simply targets the wrong player.
Statistics Canada — the activist’s friend
In the late 1980s and early 1990s every corporate think tank, neo-liberal columnist, editorial writer and TV anchor was on side promoting a campaign of deficit hysteria. We were going to hit the debt wall, Canada was going to go bankrupt, we had to tighten our belts. The Business Council on National Issues ranted and raved about how Canada had been “spending like drunken sailors” — beyond our means — and that the only solution was radical cuts to social spending.
Then in 1990, StatsCan produced a study that put the whole issue in context.
The study revealed the composition of the huge accumulated deficit (it was huge — and it was a problem). “..50 per cent of the [accumulated] deficit between 1974-75 and 1988-89 may be traced to a drop in revenue relative to GDP; 44 per cent to an increase in debt service charges relative to GDP; and six per cent to program spending at a higher relative to GDP, than in 1974-75.” That’s right — just six per cent of our debt was due to increased government spending.
The study handed to social movements, unions and others fighting social program cuts a weapon they could never have created themselves. It effectively debunked the carefully-constructed deficit terror campaign. It allowed activists to argue that because spending was not the cause, cutting was not the solution.
Which is why the federal government of Brian Mulroney moved quickly to suppress the study after a summary of it contents were published. Kevin Lynch, a powerful assistant deputy finance minister (and now Harper’s most powerful civil servant, Clerk of the Privy Council) wrote a blistering letter to the head of StatsCan objecting to the study.
The full study was never published and StatsCan was forced to issue a retraction of the summary. But it was eventually obtained through Freedom of Information and circulated broadly. Even though we lost the deficit war, it wasn’t for lack of data backing our arguments.
I tell this lengthy story simply to indicate the critical role of StatsCan to progressive politics. Every movement in the country is fighting for public support using whatever facts and arguments it can muster. Whether it is information about the environment, energy consumption, poverty, tax breaks for wealthy, the percentage of health care dollars now going to the private sector, the gap between rich and poor, the increasing number of hours worked by the average Canadian, the gender gap in wages and salaries — StatsCan is there with the raw data that give our arguments credibility and power. The Census is the core source of much of that data.
For 30 years now right wing politicians, the media and corporate think tanks have been demonizing government: Government — not corporations — is the source of all of our problems. Government has its hands in our pockets; government is inefficient and corrupt; individuals are customers, not citizens, and know how to spend their money better than government does; government red tape slows investment; we need tax “relief” — as if the source of revenue for the services we need is somehow an affliction.
The campaign has been working well. Voting levels are at historic lows — as are corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy. Social spending as a percentage of GDP is at 1950s levels — despite the fact that we are twice as wealthy in GDP per capita as we were when medicare came in. The creation of “useful crises” has convinced millions of Canadians that for-profit health care might be a good thing.
We need to expose Lockheed Martin for what it is and what it does. We need to hold politicians accountable for their complicity with transnational — and domestic — corporations. We need to fight to abrogate NAFTA and defend our country against deep integration.
Our government has been hijacked — we should be fighting to take it back. We can’t do that by demonizing it. That’s why when it comes to the Census you should count yourself in.
Murray Dobbin writes from Vancouver. He is author of Paul Martin: CEO for Canada?