Tuesday, July 27, 2010

On the census

I've been watching the committee proceedings on the changes to the long-form questionnaire for most of the morning, and I've learned a few things.

-MPs do not understand statistics.

-Maxime Bernier is a lawyer, and I didn't have to google that to find out.

-Our Chief Statistician was well spoken, smart, and very much an economist.

-Our Census is extraordinarily well thought out, and it is sad (as a social scientist) to see it go.

-From an "individual liberty" perspective, the Government is right.

-From an efficiency perspective, we don't know if they are right, we don't know if they are wrong.

-The Census is used as a benchmark to try and identify bias in voluntary surveys. This is very interesting.

-Statistics Canada is probably a very effective organization, if their operations are at all a reflection of their leaders.

Also,

Don Drummond is very smart.

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