Liberals introduce bill to reinstate mandatory long form census

[zuluking]

Explain to me why the long form census should be mandatory and why it would be undermined by the apparently ubiquitous lazy, illiterate a-holes that will immediately refuse filling it out without the threat of jail time.

[MarchHare]

I am not a fan of the sole sourcing of the F-35, but there is absolutely no doubt the CF18's are about finished and need to be replaced in the near future.

Getting off-topic here...

I heard the pilot who ejected at Lethbridge a few weeks interviewed on the radio this week. He claimed Canada's fleet of CF-18s have all recently been through a modernization upgrade program and spoke very highly of their capabilities. That's not to say we can keep using them forever, but they're hardly past their "best before date" in the same way as our Sea Kings.

Are they a match for the most modern American (F-22) or Russian (PAK FA) fighters? Of course not, but they're certainly capable of facing any threats Canada could conceivably encounter in the short-medium term.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Getting off-topic here...

I heard the pilot who ejected at Lethbridge a few weeks interviewed on the radio this week. He claimed Canada's fleet of CF-18s have all recently been through a modernization upgrade program and spoke very highly of their capabilities. That's not to say we can keep using them forever, but they're hardly past their "best before date" in the same way as our Sea Kings.

Are they a match for the most modern American (F-22) or Russian (PAK FA) fighters? Of course not, but they're certainly capable of facing any threats Canada could conceivably encounter in the short-medium term.

Its one thing to upgrade the avionics, the problem isn't in the electronics or even the control systems. The problem is the airframe itself and the fact that they are wearing out and developing microfractures, there was also an incident a couple of years ago where a wornout bomb railing (don't know if thats a point) broke midflight dropping its cargo.

The 18's were never ment to be a 40 year aircraft.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Getting off-topic here...

I heard the pilot who ejected at Lethbridge a few weeks interviewed on the radio this week. He claimed Canada's fleet of CF-18s have all recently been through a modernization upgrade program and spoke very highly of their capabilities. That's not to say we can keep using them forever, but they're hardly past their "best before date" in the same way as our Sea Kings.

Are they a match for the most modern American (F-22) or Russian (PAK FA) fighters? Of course not, but they're certainly capable of facing any threats Canada could conceivably encounter in the short-medium term.

I'm assuming he wants to fly one again...

[getbak]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Getting off-topic here...

I heard the pilot who ejected at Lethbridge a few weeks interviewed on the radio this week. He claimed Canada's fleet of CF-18s have all recently been through a modernization upgrade program and spoke very highly of their capabilities. That's not to say we can keep using them forever, but they're hardly past their "best before date" in the same way as our Sea Kings.

Are they a match for the most modern American (F-22) or Russian (PAK FA) fighters? Of course not, but they're certainly capable of facing any threats Canada could conceivably encounter in the short-medium term.

That was the same argument the Liberals made when they canceled the original MHP contract in 1993.

Because of Chrétien's stubbornness, it took until Paul Martin became the PM before there was any real movement on replacing the SeaKings. The new MHP contract was eventually signed in 2004, and the first delivery is expected to come in November, with final delivery in 2012.

That's a 20 year delay from when the original contract to replace the SeaKings was signed.

Canada isn't scheduled to take delivery of the new f-35s until 2016, and military contracts don't always deliver on schedule (the first of the new Sikorsky helicopters were supposed to be delivered in 2009, for example). Even under the best-case scenario, the CF-18s are going to still be in service for the better part of another decade.

If the Liberals come to power and follow through on their threats to do to the new fighter jet contract what they did to the MHP contract, who knows how long we'll be struggling to keep the CF-18s in the air.

[Byrns]

I'm still waiting for the liberals to scrap the GST like they promised.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Byrns

I'm still waiting for the liberals to scrap the GST like they promised.

Are you also still waiting for the Conservatives to not tax income trusts like they promised?

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Are you also still waiting for the Conservatives to not tax income trusts like they promised?

Sorry, you must be confused. Let me explain how this works.

When the Liberals break a promise it's because they're cynical politicians who will say anything to get elected and do anything to stay in power.

When the Conservatives break a promise it's because the Liberals are cynical politicians who will say anything to get elected and do anything to get back into power.

[automaton 3]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Getting off-topic here...

I heard the pilot who ejected at Lethbridge a few weeks interviewed on the radio this week. He claimed Canada's fleet of CF-18s have all recently been through a modernization upgrade program and spoke very highly of their capabilities. That's not to say we can keep using them forever, but they're hardly past their "best before date" in the same way as our Sea Kings.

Yeah the upgrade program helped with the currency issue, but the airframes themselves have fairly definitive service lives.

Here's an article discussing this issue...the US Navy models are subjected to carrier landings which ours are not, which helps a bit. Even the F-18E/F - which is a considerable newer aircraft than the early A/B models that Canada owns are showing signs of wear.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/20100317.aspx

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by zuluking

Explain to me why the long form census should be mandatory and why it would be undermined by the apparently ubiquitous lazy, illiterate a-holes that will immediately refuse filling it out without the threat of jail time.

(A) According to the e-mails that were given to the media via the freedom of information act, senior officials at STC estimated that a non-mandatory long form would bring the response rate from about 100% to 50%. If you are getting 50% of the data, you are going to be far less accurate.
(B) As we have seen in the past, if you make something voluntary, we get over/undersampling. That 50% that we would get would generally be from people that are educated enough to see the value of the census and see that it is worthwhile to them and people that have the free time to do it. Retirees. Stay-at-home moms when the kids are off to school. An odd one is that the unemployed often don't respond even though they have the time. They end up in the "undersampled" populations. When I went knocking on doors for an orientation course, we found that the older people were the more likely they were to respond to our questionnaire. Younger people were always on the run from one place to the next and would refuse. So if we are oversampling and undersampling various social groups, we are again devaluing the data.

The reason the Chief Stat resigned was because Clement insinuated that Statistics Canada was on board with saying the data will be as accurate with a voluntary long from as with a mandatory form. As soon as he quit, Dr. Sheik said this was NOT true, no statistical agency in the world would ever make such a claim, and both he and the previous Chief Stat, Dr. Fellegi have said that for the purpose of providing the best most accurate data, we should have a mandatory long form.

[Komskies]

Slightly on-topic, has anyone received a call from the Conservative party in the last few days soliciting donations? This lady called me on Wednesday asking if I'd be willing to donate $200 to help the Cons secure 8 more seats for a majority government.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by fotze

I have avoided this issue until now because it was boring to me. Was I wrong. I figured it would be the conservatives that held the more big brother view of making this mandatory and liberals would be the opposite. Its the opposite? WDF? Truly puzzling.

This has had me confused too.

If you were playing the "guess which side the parties are on" game, you'd expect the Cons to be on the side of "tell us everything about every minute detail of your life, or we'll throw you in jail", and the Libs and DPs to be on the side saying, "you can't do that, it violates people's rights to privacy".


Since it appears that no one asked the Conservatives to make this change, and so many people are up in arms about it, can anyone fill me in on exactly why this change was made?

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by automaton 3

Not to mention the Iltis jeeps with their awesome canvas armour protection that were first sent over. How many lives did that cost?

I am not a fan of the sole sourcing of the F-35, but there is absolutely no doubt the CF18's are about finished and need to be replaced in the near future.

The two incidents involving the Iltis involved a land mine and a suicide bomber certainly not a thing that could have been prevented had they been in a G-Wagen.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Uhm, did you read the second post in this thread? The census *IS* online and was in 2006. As I was stating before, the web team are having fun trying to keep up with all the changes which is hard since the requirements are changing with each passing day.

Changing the paper form is easy compared to changing the database and capture forms.

I don't know about that, the paper forms are produced electronically, so the information is likely database driven anyway. So in a decent system, changing the online forms would be about the same amount of work as the paper based.

Then again this is the Federal Government, so both are probably done as inefficiently as possible.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by cal_guy

The two incidents involving the Iltis involved a land mine and a suicide bomber certainly not a thing that could have been prevented had they been in a G-Wagen.

Maybe, maybe not, but the Iltis jeep had little to no bottom armour, and was using a canvas top so there was no chance of survival. The G wagon has bottom and side armor so the troops would have been better protected.

When you say that not a thing could have been done, I disagree.

The G wagon would have given them a better probability of survival.

There was absolutely nothing left of the Iltis jeep that hit the mine.

The other problem with the Iltis was the whole Bombardier thing, where we could have bought them significantly cheaper from the German's, but because one of Chretien's inlaws was a executive at Bombardier they got the contract at a significant premium per jeep to build here.

They were a terrible, underpowered really crappy vehicle.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by getbak

This has had me confused too.

If you were playing the "guess which side the parties are on" game, you'd expect the Cons to be on the side of "tell us everything about every minute detail of your life, or we'll throw you in jail", and the Libs and DPs to be on the side saying, "you can't do that, it violates people's rights to privacy".

What? Only in opposite land maybe.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by zuluking

Explain to me why the long form census should be mandatory and why it would be undermined by the apparently ubiquitous lazy, illiterate a-holes that will immediately refuse filling it out without the threat of jail time.

This is the exact question that has me wondering why the Liberals are drawing a line in the sand here, and not on more critical issues.

DA articulated quite nicely why the form has to be mandatory, but his answer does not touch on what I think would be the larger issue: Why is the long form needed at all?

The average person generally won't understand the purpose behind it, so to gain political traction on this, the Liberals have to not only educate the public on the reasons the long form exists in the first place, but has to motivate that same public to care enough for it to become an issue.

I simply don't see that happening.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

The average person generally won't understand the purpose behind it, so to gain political traction on this, the Liberals have to not only educate the public on the reasons the long form exists in the first place, but has to motivate that same public to care enough for it to become an issue.

Tories might try to reassure themselves with that story, but the numbers just don't bear it out. Here are the facts: the Tories suffered an instant 6 point drop in the EKOS tracking poll when this issue went public. Their previously solid lead completely evaporated, practically overnight. They've since regained a much smaller lead, but the internals (way more important than the topline, especially this far from an election) don't look very good for them at all.

Among University-educated voters (who are likelier to vote) the Liberals have gained significantly at the expense of the Tories, and the Conservative Party still polls below a third of the electorate. That means two thirds of Canadians will vote for a different party, and Harper is once again closer to being out of office than he is to forming a majority.

According to EKOS:

For those wondering if the Census dispute is having any real effect on the Canadian electorate, the evidence is now in. When we look at what happened to the voting intentions of the highly educated, it appears almost certain that the narrowing race can be traced to the controversy over the government’s decision to end the compulsory long form. Changes in the demographic anatomy of support lead to the conclusion that this controversy has triggered a fairly significant shift in the electorate during a fairly quiet summer period when little else is at play.

http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.ph...ugust-19-2010/

Here's the point. Hardcore conservative supporters (such as you'd find in abundance in Calgary) are likely to be confused by this issue, because it doesn't seem "life or death." Think about it: for you to change your vote, Harper would have to do something far worse than pee all over Stats Canada.

But for swing voters, and especially swing voters in other regions, that simply isn't true. The fact is, that Harper has been walking a thin line between minority PM and leader of the Opposition, and he knows it. That's why I'm surprised that he bungled this so badly. For some voters, this story confirms a negative narrative about Harper that has been bugging them for a while. Most of those voters don't live in Calgary and don't post on Calgarypuck, but they're real nevertheless, and Harper can't win the next election without a sizeable chunk of votes from his "softer" support in other regions of the country.

I disagree that the Liberals are bringing this into the spotlight. My feeling is the Grits are late to the party on this one. The Liberals' mistake was being silent about this issue for too long. The public doesn't need to be convinced to care about this issue--the data shows that they already care, and they care enough that Harper should be (and probably is) alarmed by the very rapid erosion of his party in the polls, an erosion that has been driven in large part by the census issue.

[Resolute 14]

Touche. I certainly didn't realize that it is that big of an issue to the electorate, even though I agree that making the form voluntary was a dumb idea.

[Azure]

Would be pretty sad if the government fell because of something like this. Outside of a few things, the Conservatives have done a remarkable job steering us through the recession. And I sure as hell trust Harper more than I do that moron who is leader of the liberals right now.