Liberals Condemn Unreliability of National Household Survey Data, Call on Government to Restore Long-form Census
September 12, 2013
OTTAWA– Liberal Industry, Small Business and Tourism critic, Judy Sgro, sent the following letter to the Minister of Industry today regarding the unreliability of the data in Statistics Canada’s National Household Survey:
Hon. James Moore, PC, MP
Minister of Industry
356 Confederation Building
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Dear Minister,
I am writing to you in your capacity as the Minister responsible for Statistics Canada.
As you know Statistics Canada recently released the final major data set from Canada’s first-ever National Household Survey (NHS). The data will no doubt be pored over for many years to come, however the many caveats and warnings from Statistics Canada about the data’s comparability to the previous long-form census should be cause for great concern.
To illustrate but one example of the need for caution, poor response rates in certain areas forced Statistics Canada to suppress its data for thousands of communities. In Western Canada a full third of communities did not have their data from the NHS published. Communities as large as Brokenhead, Manitoba simply don’t exist in the NHS.
Even the income data that was released yesterday came with a stern warning from Statistics Canada whose spokesperson said, “The economy is moving, it’s shifting. So we have to hold that filter and lens constant. And methodology is part of that filter – and that changed.”
The NHS warns that data on low income trends and income inequality are simply not comparable to past census data.
A frequently cited editorial published by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in June 2005 on the importance of access to information seems particularly relevant here. At the time he wrote: “Information is the lifeblood of a democracy. Without adequate access to key information about government policies and programs, citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions, and incompetent or corrupt governance can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.”
I fear that the tremendous decline in the reliability of data provided by the NHS, as well as its general incomparability to many decades worth of long-form census data, will make informed decisions more difficult not only for governments but for businesses and civil society as well. We can no longer accurately measure a given policy’s success or failure because our new statistical data is not fully comparable to that of the past.
Tragically this “cloak of secrecy” cost Canadian citizens $30 million more than what the traditional long-form census would have cost them. In short, we paid more money to get less information and made it easier to hide incompetent governance along the way.
Your government’s unwillingness to trust Canadians with all the data and facts continues to be disconcerting. Given the overwhelming negative reaction from Canadians, universities, business leaders, municipalities and charities I would urge you to change course. Please commit to restoring the long-form census and to building a better evidence-based Canada.
Sincerely,
Hon. Judy A. Sgro, MP
Liberal Critic for Industry, Small Business and Tourism