The Conservatives' Census Fail

There's an easy way the opposition could expose Tony Clement and the Conservatives for lying about long-form census complaints.

A week after Industry Minister Tony Clement tried to quietly kill the long-form census, public and media condemnation of the government's decision has been universal. Hundreds of letters of complaint have been written, dozens and dozens of organizations from diverse groups have demanded the decision be reversed, and columns upon columns of ink have condemned the move. Indeed, out of the hundreds of groups, journalists, civic leaders, and others who commented on the issue, only one article favourable to the government has been published.

Now the political opposition has started to mobilize. Their focus has been on the secretive nature of the decision and the failure to consult any stakeholders. While this is problematic, it is not the most ironic and sensitive point. There’s actually a much juicier Achilles heel in this decision, one that might garner press attention.

In explaining the decision, Minister of Industry Tony Clement has repeatedly claimed that MP offices have received numerous complaints about the long-form census form:

Every MP has had complaints like that so this year we decided to at least try another method that could be a sound method that would beat the issue of concern of degradation of data, and deal with the issue of coercion and too much intrusiveness.

The statement suggests that support is broad but, ironically both anecdotal and untestable.

The fun thing is, it doesn't have to be that way. The opposition could bring more (and hard) information to this process and expose how the Conservatives are using a lack of information to, at best, mislead and at worst, lie, to ordinary Canadians. Better still, if the opposition parties have been well organized, they may already possess all the data they need.

How is this? Well, why don’t the Liberals, Bloc, and NDP each ask their MPs to search and count every email and letter involving a complaint about the census from constituents over the past four (or some sensible number of) years.

My suspicion is that there are no more than 100 such letters (and maybe even a lot fewer – say 10). Parties could then pick a couple of issues on which they have received thousands of letters and on which the Conservatives have taken no action and put up a simple chart showing how they react to made-up issues, but ignore the real priorities of ordinary Canadians.

Of course, maybe there has been some massive, secret letter campaign targeted at only Conservative MPs, but then let the Conservatives produce these letters. While Canadians might be interested to know how many letters the minister and conservative MPs have actually received (sadly, I don't think you can ATIP this), most will probably suspect it is about as many as other MPs have.

The message is simple but clever. Let's show that better data leads to better decisions and that a little transparency can go a long way to exposing those who seek to mislead us. The minister says MPs get lots of letters. Great, let’s call that bluff! Show us how many, and in comparison to what. Moreover, let's show that those who seek to restrict the gathering of good information are generally those most inclined to use a lack of data to mislead the public and drive agendas that are not in the public interest. Canadians are sensible people; they want a smart government that makes good decisions. This, much more than secrecy, will rub them the wrong way.

The narrative isn't as neat – but I suspect it could be turned into something more fun and more impactful.