Minister Tony Clement: Marc Garneau

Industry Critic Dept: Industry critic Marc Garneau said in a news conference yesterday that he will ask for the Industry, Science and Technology Committee to meet this summer and insist Clement provide evidence of the privacy concerns the government says prompted what Garneau called a "secretive, manipulative move.", according to Montreal Gazette. He insisted the decision to scrap the long-form mandatory census and replace it with a voluntary survey was not motivated by the privacy concerns cited by Clement, saying the auditor general had "nothing but praise" for Statistics Canada in a 2007 report. Rather, Garneau says the change is ideologically driven and intended to leave certain groups of Canadians out of the national demographic portrait and the Liberals are looking to reconvene a Parliamentary committee this summer and demanding Industry Minister Tony Clement explain and justify the government's decision to scrap the long-form census for 2011. "This is a government that on a daily basis from 2006 talked about transparency and accountability, and is completely hypocritical about the need to be transparent and to be open with Canadians," Garneau said. "This kind of announcement in the quiet of summer is very typical for them." As reported in the news.
@t demographic portrait, montreal gazette