Avalon

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.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.