Avalon

According to a just released report by The Ecology Action Centre and the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, Nova Scotians are eating less local food than a decade ago. Only 13% of our food dollars goes towards local produce.

The report states Nova Scotia farmers cannot produce at low enough cost to compete with imports. Unless a brand is created such as Northumberland lamb or Digby scallops produce is a commodity. As the report points out ‘The only way to be viable in the food industry is to be centralized with a huge market and all the raw materials at the most economical advantage. You have to have the cheapest inputs. Our inputs aren’t the cheapest (in Nova Scotia)’.

Most of the report’s recommendations are fine; buy local, encourage 4H clubs, eat healthier (although the mention of political pressure and ‘real’ pricing is worrisome). But these baby steps do nothing to overcome the root of the problem; the lack of low cost production. Only affluent consumers would consider paying an additional $2 a pound to support local lamb.

Nova Scotians want a vibrate farm industry and sustainable farming communities. The report alludes to the solution but does not recommend it; the creation of a large regional market. Government must create a low cost environment for all business and make Atlantic Canada a large regional market in which all producers can compete. Those producers who produce the best produce at the lowest price will grow and be able to compete with imports and in other markets. There is tremendous upside for our farming industry, Nova Scotia blueberries could be exported to Chile rather than visa-versa. To not do this is to betray our farming communities.

Here is the original report
http://www.nsfa-fane.ca/files/images/file/FM_Final%202010.pdf

THE WRONG MAN has quit in Ottawa.

It’s Industry Minister Tony Clement who should have resigned Wednesday.

It’s Mr. Clement who has lost sight of his ministerial duty to protect the integrity of the national census and of Statistics Canada.

It’s Mr. Clement who has settled for being a mere cheerleader for a government political decision to replace the mandatory long-form census with a voluntary survey.

It’s Mr. Clement who has turned a deaf ear to informed census users — provincial governments, health professionals, economists, scientists, researchers, charities — who say the change will seriously degrade data needed to plan things like health and education services, jobless benefits, transportation systems, government budgets and fund-raising.

It’s Mr. Clement who has misled the public by suggesting senior staff at Statistics Canada advised they could offset the risk of degrading long-form data by surveying more people and running ads to encourage compliance.

Government statisticians don’t believe this. We know this from the man who did sadly resign, Chief Statistician Munir Sheik.

In a statement on the StatsCan website, the departing head of the agency said he could not legally comment on his advice to the minister (though he noted the government is free to release it). But he did give us his professional opinion on the “technical statistical issue” at the heart of this controversy: “whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census.”

Mr. Sheik’s judgment: “It can not.”

It can’t be said more plainly than that.

How could the minister be so out of touch with his experts’ view? Mr. Clement says he was entitled to assume officials were “comfortable” with a voluntary survey because they produced this option. Let’s see the advice and let the public decide whether the voluntary plan was recommended or just damage control after an imposed political decision.

It’s a sorry tale that no senior ministers would put their jobs on the line to stick up for competent government. They clung to empty titles while a good public servant chose resignation over being used as window dressing.

( edits@herald.ca)

The premise of this opinion is wrong.

Mr. Clement has not lost sight of his duty, far from it. His primary duty as a member of Parliament is to protect the individual from encroachment and harassment by government. And yes he also has a lesser duty ‘to protect the integrity of the national census and of Statistics Canada’ and this has put him in a dilemma; uphold the fundamental rights of citizens or stick with the experts. He made the right choice. The experts are predictably not happy because their task is made harder, hence all the electronic ink spilt on this affair. And this issue is not about the extent of the data collected or whether it is a public or private group who collects it. The issue is the national census conducted in an Orwellian fashion; ‘respond or else’ and Canadians should not stand for that. The principle is clear – one person being press-ganged into participation against their will is not worth the whole government policy formation process.

Industry Minister Tony Clement has spent the past three weeks defending the federal government’s decision to take away penalties for not filling out the long-form census. Anyone who didn’t fill out the census risked fines or jail time. The head of Statistics Canada, Munir Sheikh, has quit, saying a voluntary census can’t replace a mandatory one.

Coming from a quantitative and statistical background I understand the problems of voluntary sampling that may preclude statistical inference. People who decline to answer the census probably display a number of systematic biases, for example busy dual income families with children may decline more often than retirees thus skewing the results. Government by its nature rests on clear statistical patterns in order to formulate and implement policy. It is a real problem and Mr. Sheikh as a statistician knows this.

However, the idea that government may take punitive action against individuals who decline to participate in its studies is the greater evil. Individuals should be free to decide for themselves on their involvement. As John Stuart Mill said, ” …the only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his (or her) will, is to prevent harm to others”. Since we are, presumably, a civilized society and refusing to participate with government does no direct harm to others dropping the mandatory nature of the long-form is the only correct route. I trust this is or will soon be true also of the other census forms (2A, 2C, 2D, and 6) as well.