The long and the short of 2011 census

I have in front of me the 2011 census. I’m invited to fill out the paper form we received in the mail, or do it online.

 We “must” fill it out within 10 days.  It doesn’t say what happens if we don’t, but everyone knows there are penalties for not doing so.

 Earlier this year, a Saskatchewan woman was threatened with three months in jail and a $500 fine for refusing to fill out the 2006 census. The census, Sandra Finley said, is “characteristic of fascist, militarist states.” (She was given an absolute discharge and ran for the Greens in the recent federal election.)

 Nobody has actually ever gone to jail, though a half dozen Canadians are fined each census year.

 Census objectors like Finley regard it as an invasion of privacy. They say it’s been a bad thing since biblical times, that the Nazis used it to track down Jews , and the U.S. government went after draft dodgers with it. The Freeman group calls the census “a powerful tool of social control and social engineering.”

 I will fill it out anyway. Maybe, 92 years from now when the 2011 census is declassified, some researcher will find it interesting to know something about the Rothenburger family.

 More important is the statistical information gathered for — as the form explains — funding social programs, schools, policing, fire protection and such.

 The controversy over the regular census pales alongside the long-form version that used to go out to a third of households and which, like the short form, had to be completed under threat of prosecution.

 Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement announced last July the long form would be ditched and replaced with a voluntary National Household Survey.  That one will be mailed out in a few weeks to selected households. It’s expected about half the people who receive it will fill it out.

 “There are some people,” Clement said, “who believe that Canadians should be forced to divulge intimate, private details about their personal lives to the government. We disagree.”

 The head of Statistics Canada resigned in protest, and dozens of organizations objected. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives questioned how government policy could be effective without “evidence-based” information.

 But, it is what it is. This year’s 10-question short census questionnaire folds like a roadmap but takes only a few minutes to complete. The questions — who lives in your household, their marital relationship, date of birth, first language, and so on — are benign.

 The NHS, with 60-plus questions, gets more interesting. One might wonder why the government needs to know how many bedrooms you have in your house, what time you left for work on May 10, and whether your home is in need of repairs.

 However, we’re assured it’s all useful information for setting policy, and I’m quite sure it is. Though I count myself as one who grows increasingly concerned about privacy in this techno world, I have no objection to telling the government my education, occupation, my ethnic origin or even how much money I make.

 By the time the information goes public, I’ll be long gone. So, if asked to fill out the NHS, I’ll take the time to do it.

 It’s the least a Canadian can do.