Bernier double-talk sinks Tories on census

Quebec Conservative Maxime Bernier may have single-handedly destroyed his party's credibility on the long-form census issue.

The hole that the Conservatives have dug themselves over their decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census got a little deeper this week, when it was revealed that the government received only 882 complaints about the 2006 census, rather than the “1000 a day” cited by former industry minister and current Tory backbencher Maxime Bernier.

“It is now clear that Canadians are not bothered by the mandatory long-form census,” says a Globe and Mail editorial. “Thus, no reason exists to scrap it.” In response to the news that practically no one seems worried about the form, Industry Minister Tony Clement said that even one complaint was enough to prompt a change in bad policy. “This attitude would be quite laudable,” says the Globe, “if government actually worked this way. It would truly be government of, by and for the people. One person could turn a nation in a new direction … On second thought, it is probably not a good way to run a country.”

Clement may not appreciate the ramifications his ‘one complaint’ doctrine could have, especially on his party’s minority government, says a Saskatoon StarPhoenix editorial. “Coming from a minister of a governing party that failed to garner the support of two in three Canadians, that's a pretty lofty standard.” Having cycled through the excuse that Canadians shouldn’t be jailed for not filling out the census (no one ever has), and that Canadians have complained about its intrusiveness (they haven’t), Tory “justifications for the widely unpopular decision increasingly sound as if they are being made up on the fly.”

Things got worse this afternoon when the Liberals released a letter that said the following: “(The long census is) essential for providing the information needed by governments, businesses, researchers and individual Canadians to shed light on issues of concern to all of us – employment, education, training, transportation, housing, immigration, income support, pensions for seniors, transfer payments, aboriginal issues and many more.” No, that’s not Michael Ignatieff talking, but Bernier himself in a 2006 correspondence to an Ontario Liberal MP. What a difference four years make.