Invited Commentaries/Commentaires sollicités: The Politics of the Census: Lessons from Abroad

Canadian Public Policy

Invited Commentaries/Commentaires sollicités: The Politics of the Census: Lessons fromAbroadAuthor(s): Debra ThompsonSource: Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques, Vol. 36, No. 3 (September/septembre2010), pp. 377-382Published by: University of Toronto Press on behalf of Canadian Public PolicyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20799663 .

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Invited Commentaries/

Commentaires sollicit?s

The Politics of the Census:

Lessons from Abroad

Debra Thompson

Department of Government/Center for American Political Studies Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts

In late June, Minister of Industry Tony Clement

announced the government's decision to elimin

ate the mandatory long form of the 2011 Census

and replace it with a voluntary survey to be sent

to one-third of Canadian households. The decision

was reportedly made by Prime Minister Stephen

Harper last December and has largely been framed

by Conservative cabinet ministers as an import ant change to safeguard the privacy of Canadians.

They maintain that the state has no business in the

bedrooms of society, or, more specifically, that the

state has no business asking Canadians how many bedrooms they have in their places of residence.

The Prime Minister's Office has stated, "The

government made this decision because we do not

believe Canadians should be forced, under threat of

fines, jail, or both, to disclose extensive private and

personal information" (Valpy 2010). Clement, the

minister responsible for Statistics Canada, argued before a parliamentary committee on 27 July that

though the information gathered in the long form

is "valuable," a "balance must be drawn" between

collecting data and the privacy rights of Canadians.

In spite of the Conservative government's con

sistent references over the summer months to their

goal of protecting privacy, there is a prominent disconnect between rhetoric and evidence. In a state

ment on 13 July, Tony Clement noted that "in the

past, the Government of Canada received complaints about the long form Census from citizens who felt

it was an intrusion of their privacy." However, the

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has

revealed that just three complaints were filed about

the census over the past decade, and Federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart testified before the

parliamentary committee that there have been 50

complaints about the census over the past 20 years.

In the weeks following the government's an

nouncement, critics have said that the shift to a

voluntary long form is driven far more by ideology than by a genuine threat to Canadians' privacy

(Simpson 2010). However, the move is puzzling because the Tories seem to be attempting to appeal to a populist base whose concerns with regards to

the census are largely unknown. Another rationale,

put forward by political scientist Paul Saurette, is

that this latest development is not the short-sighted

policy decision it appears to be but rather is part of

Harper's longer-term ideological goal, "the trans

formation of the broad public philosophy of Canada

Canadian Public Policy - Analyse de politiques, vol. xxxvi, no. 3 2010



378 Debra Thompson

and the cultivation of an enduring set of conservative

values and philosophical principles in Canadians"

(Saurette 2010).

The Conservative government's commitment to

eliminating the mandatory long form in the 2011

Census risks alienating many of their traditional

allies in the private sector, including the Canadian

Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Association

for Business Economics, the Toronto Board of

Trade, and the Canadian Marketing Association, which have all publicly opposed the change. Organ izations and individuals against the voluntary survey have expressed concern about the adequacy of data

not collected as part of a census. A voluntary survey, in the words of former Chief Statistician Munir

Sheikh, who resigned over the issue, cannot replace the mandatory form. The opponents of the govern ment's position on the long form argue that only a mandatory census can produce the accurate and

reliable data on the Canadian population required for the development of good public policy, necessary

programs and services, and trustworthy research.

The reach of a voluntary survey simply does not

compare?and indeed, may affect the comparability of this data set with its predecessors?while the

self-selection of respondents who volunteer to fill

in the form will impair the reliability of the data and

representativeness of the sample.

For many of us, the census is yet another govern ment form that appears in our mailboxes once every five or ten years. It is hardly the stuff that real polit ical contention is made of. And yet, as I demonstrate

below, the census has often been the battleground of elite politics. Against this comparative backdrop, Canadian institutions have not only largely worked

to isolate our statistical system from these debates

but have also created very specific opportunities and

constraints for the ways in which the government can collect data. These circumstances speak to the

necessity of both ensuring the independence of our

statistical system and protecting it from outside

interference by political forces.

Lessons from Abroad

The recent events represent neither the first time nor

the first place in which political parties have tried

to influence the development of statistics. While

the census and the statistical agency responsible for it are supposed to be ideology free and non

partisan, the census and the policy consequences that arise from its results often have effects on par tisan politics, linked to the two central concerns of

government: money and representation.

In the United States the census has long been

acknowledged to be an undertaking with political

consequences. These consequences are most clearly illustrated by the contentious issue of census adjust

ments?that is, whether the bureaucracy adjusts census results after the fact to reduce known under

counts (Freedman and W?chter 2001). The highly controversial decision to not adjust the census in

1980 was made by the Census Bureau alone, which, as Skerry notes, is a testament to the significant auton

omy the agency once enjoyed (2000, 22). However, in recent decades the Bureau's autonomy has eroded

significantly. Former Census Director Barbara Bryant

complained that there was a "bureaucratic takeover"

of the Census Bureau by the Department of Com merce in the late 1980s and 1990s. When several cities

sued the Secretary of Commerce, the Department of

Commerce, and the Census Bureau over urban under

counts, census adjustment decisions were moved away from the statistical arena into the congressional realm

(Bryant and Dunn 1995, 158-9).

As the Department of Commerce increased its

involvement in the Census Bureau's affairs, congres sional incursion into the census also began to reach

new heights. After the 1994 election the Republicans

gained control of the House of Representatives and

Senate under a Democratic executive. Congressional involvement in, and oversight of, the 2000 Census

was unprecedented. For example, starting two

years before the 2000 Census, the director of the

Census Bureau, political scientist Kenneth Prewitt,

Canadian Public Policy -

Analyse de politiques, vol. xxxvi, no. 3 2010



The Politics of the Census: Lessons from Abroad 379

"testified before Congress 23 times, responded to

over 150 letters from the House Subcommittee on

the census (which itself held 17 hearings on Census

2000 design issues), and cooperated with 522 field

visits by the US General Accounting Office, the

Congressional Monitoring Board, and the Commerce

Department inspector general" (Hillygus et al. 2006,

1-2). The issue of census adjustment became the

target of partisan animosities in congressional com

mittees since the populations that have historically been undercounted by the census are disproportion

ately racial and ethnic minorities living in urban

areas and are far more likely to vote Democrat than

Republican. This also makes the review of census

administration in the United States a very public

affair, forcing the Census Bureau to respond to criti

cisms stemming from Congress, the press, the public, and the courts on the occasions when census results

have been challenged (Choldin 1994).

In Great Britain, where a privacy movement against the intrusive nature of the census has existed for some

time, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher foreshadowed

the Canadian Tories' argument that census questions are an unwarranted incursion of the state into the

private lives of individuals. She found many of the

questions proposed for the 1981 Census?for example, whether one was working, retired, or a housewife?

"completely unnecessary" and jettisoned them from

the final questionnaire. As Secretary of State Patrick

Jenkin noted, Thatcher was "very concerned about

the intrusion into the private affairs of individuals and

feels strongly that the Government will lay itself open to justifiable criticism unless it can be shown that these

questions are really necessary for policy analysis and

decisions" (UK PRO 1979). This neo-conservative

concern about Big Brother in Britain continues in

more recent incarnations of census politics. While in

opposition in 2009, the Conservative Party called the

census "invasive and intrusive."

Interestingly, anxiety about the quality of data

produced, far more than ideology, has driven the

overhaul of Britain's statistical system over the past

20 years. After several government reviews ques tioned the quality of the statistics being produced

by Government Statistical Service (GSS), and the

Royal Statistical Society (1990) noted that there was

a serious erosion of public confidence in UK official

statistics, the government centralized responsibility for statistics in a new Office for National Statistics

(ONS) in 1996 (Pullinger 1997). Since this develop ment the British government has furthered its pursuit of an autonomous statistical agency. The 1998 Green

Paper sought to stimulate public debate on future

arrangements for the UK's statistical system (HM Government 1998). After consultations with stake

holders, the government published a White Paper in

1999 outlining new accountability and governance

arrangements for the ONS, including the creation

of the UK Statistics Authority, a body independent of both ministers and the producers of national

statistics (HM Government 1999).

In spite of these developments, the future of the

census in the UK remains unclear. Some countries,

especially in Western Europe and Scandinavia, have

rejected an expensive decennial census in favour

of systems that can link and use the administrative

data routinely collected from others sources. Though some believe that the census is a vital resource that

cannot be replicated even by pooling other sources

of administrative data (Boyle and Dorling 2004), Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude revealed

in July that the 2011 Census would be Britain's

last (Hope 2010). However, it is important to note

that the UK's "Beyond 2011" project was years in

the making, put into place by the Labour govern ment back in 2009 and involving massive public consultations within and outside the government. In comparison, Harper's decision has consistently

disregarded public and stakeholder input.

Census Politics in Canada

The structure of Canadian institutions means that the

census is, at least for the foreseeable future, here to

Canadian Public Policy - Analyse de politiques, vol. xxxvi, no. 3 2010



380 Debra Thompson

stay. The breadth of Statistics Canada's autonomy, however, is up for debate. A cursory glance at census

politics over the past few decades demonstrates that

Canada is not immune to the political battles over

statistics that are commonplace in other countries.

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's first government

originally cancelled the mid-decade census in 1986 to "save money," but was forced to reverse its deci sion in part because of"pushback" from government

departments that needed census data for administer

ing programs like equalization (Curry 2010). The

government also needed to reverse the decision

because of constitutional provisions dating back to

when the Prairie Provinces joined Confederation

that require a mid-decade census to occur. Statistics

Canada has also been influenced by tirades against

Big Government from Conservatives and Liberals

alike: like other federal departments, its budget was

cut during the government-wide program review in the 1990s and more recent incarnations of slashed

government spending (Thompson 2010).

Comparatively speaking, however, our statistical

agency has guarded its autonomy from the ideologic al agendas of the government in power. According to a Statistics Canada representative interviewed well

before the elimination of the mandatory long form was announced, one of the strengths of Statistics Canada is its autonomy from politics. "That doesn't mean that we don't have to manage our budgets," he

said, "but there's no political influence in anything that we do. And we've worked very, very hard to maintain that" (Thompson 2010, 330). The statis tical system itself is also designed to preserve the

agency's independence. Unlike Britain, where the

"Beyond 2011" project seeks to identify alterna tives to a decennial census, our census is mandated

by constitutional provision. Unlike the United

States, in which over 70 different federal govern ment agencies collect statistics, responsibility for the decennial census and all statistical activities of the state is governed by the 1971 Statistics Act and

responsibility lies with Statistics Canada alone. By

operating under a single law, Statistics Canada is able to share data with other government agencies;

by contrast, in the United States confidentiality and disclosure provisions sometimes preclude the ability of statistical agencies to access data. Each of the ten

provinces has a statistical office that works closely with Statistics Canada, and interdepartmental co

ordination is often conducted through project teams

with specific data collection or analytical tasks (US GAO 1996).

These safeguards are magnified by one of the cen

tral tenets of our Westminster model of government, the notion of a professional, non-partisan public ser

vice (Rhodes, Wanna, and Weiler 2009). The Chief

Statistician of Canada is a senior civil servant who holds the rank of deputy minister and reports to the Minister of Industry. A long-standing tradition holds

that deputy ministers, including the Chief Statisti

cian, are retained through changes in government; for example, Dr Ivan Fellegi held his position as

Chief Statistician in Canada from 1985 to 2008,

through numerous changes of the party in power.

Accountability and responsibility mechanisms in the Canadian political system work to protect the

autonomy of Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada has the makings of an arms-length agency, even though

Minister Clement has commented that the agency and its staff are not independent: "Sometimes, some of them like to think they are?but that doesn't make it so. They report to a minister" (Chase 2010). For

example, the Minister of Industry cannot overrule the Chief Statistician on issues of confidentiality, and the Chief Statistician will defend the budget for Statistics Canada before parliament, while in other government departments deputy ministers

accompany the responsible minister.

Other aspects of Canadian institutions constrain the extent to which the various levels of government can collect data. Though the highly centralized statis tical system works to facilitate the horizontal sharing of data among government departments, federalism

poses significant challenges for the independent col lection and dissemination of statistical data by the

provinces. Only Quebec's Institut de la Statistique has the capacity to fill some of the many statistical gaps





The Politics of the Census: Lessons from Abroad 381

that the elimination of the mandatory long form will

leave. All provinces and territories including Quebec

rely heavily on Statistics Canada's collection of raw

data. Rather than this being an issue of the provinces

getting an easy ride "while the government of Canada

was the heavy," as Tony Clement complained after

several provinces called on the Conservatives to re

consider their decision (Chase and Howlet 2010), it

is in part a consequence of a centralized but federal

statistical system at work. Simply put, the fiscal fed

eral structure makes some alternative data collection

arrangements infeasible and the government's recent

decision all the more troubling.

Conclusion

Statistics Canada has been internationally recog nized as one of the best statistical agencies in the

world because of its isolation from the political influence that has plagued the politics of the census

in other countries. According to the UN Statistical

Commission, "Objective, reliable and accessible

official statistics give people and organizations,

nationally and internationally, confidence in the

integrity of government and public decision-making on the economic, social and environmental situation

within a country ... Compilation and release of data

should be free from political interference, so as to

ensure impartiality of the national statistical office"

(UN Statistical Commission 2004).

Objectivity in the development of statistics is the

cornerstone of the production of the reliable, high

quality data required for making informed policy choices. The statistics produced through the census

and other surveys must be objective and accurate in

order to inform decision-making inside and outside

government and to allow the society to question and

judge whether or not the government is acting in its

best interests. The record of political interference in

censuses elsewhere and the recent events in Canada

point to the need for an informed discussion over

the desirability and feasibility of strengthening the

institutional autonomy of Statistics Canada.

References

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Bryant, B. and W. Dunn. 1995. Moving Money and Power:

The Politics of Census Taking. New York: New York

Strategist Publications.

Chase, S. 2010. "Tony Clement Clears Air on the Census."

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382 Debra Thompson

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Invited Commentaries/Commentaires sollicités: The Politics of the Census: Lessons from Abroad