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It intrigues me that during the entire long-form census controversy Mr. Harper has said nothing. The initial explanation is that he is on vacation at his summer residence at Harrington Lake. The tactical explanation is that on a controversial issue the relevant minister(s) should speak for the government, as Bernier and Clement are doing, and the Prime Minister should only weigh in when the issue is close to resolution. The third explanation is more strategic, and concerns the acceptability of the government’s agenda to Canadians.

We’ve been told that the impetus for the decision to make the long-form census voluntary came from Mr. Harper himself, from his belief that government has become too intrusive. It must be profoundly depressing for him to see 75 percent of the electorate disagreeing with him on this issue, and to see virtually every organized interest group opposing him. The only support he seems to have is from the Fraser Institute and from so-called libertarians like the Globe and Mail’s Neil Reynolds (whom, btw, I plan to diss in a future post).

Canadians seem to recognize – in this information age – that gathering and disseminating information is a legitimate function of government. It hasn’t been discussed in the census controversy, but it is essential to recognize that during the Great Depression of the Thirties, governments had much less economic data than they have now – in particular, there were no GDP numbers. The economic problem was thus exacerbated because government was flying blind.

The Harper Government believes that what it sees as interventionist social policy can be crippled by depriving it of its informational oxygen. The vast majority of Canadians have now realized that information is indeed oxygen, both for public policy and for their own initiatives, and are resisting.

So where does Mr. Harper go from here? He could, as a pragmatist, recognize that yet again his ideological agenda won’t sell, and accept the intelligent compromise that the National Statistics Council has developed.

Or he could tough it out. He has the tactical advantages that Parliament is not in session and the deadline for beginning to print the census forms comes next week. When Parliament meets in the fall, he could say that printing has already started and it’s too late to make changes. And he could dare the Opposition to vote no confidence.

Clearly this is an issue on which the opposition parties are united. The question is whether they are ready for an election. For the opposition, particularly the Liberals, the issue would have to be broadened from the status of the long-form census to the role of government in society. And given his background as political theorist, this could be an issue with which Michael Ignatieff would be comfortable.

In any event, it would be two years since the last election, which is a reasonable length of time for a minority government. It’s no secret that the Conservatives have been considering pulling the plug. Indeed they have been polling about it. (I was polled). Why doesn’t the Opposition seize the high ground and define the issue?

I won’t be posting next week. We’re going to see the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown. I’ll be back the second week of August.

Yes Minister once referred to the clash between the political will and the administrative won’t, but in the case of retaining the mandatory long-form census, I think it is more appropriate to reverse the terms.

Chief Statistician Munir Sheik’s resignation on a matter of principle is extraordinary and courageous. I heard him speak once or twice and assumed from his soft-spoken manner and mild demeanour that he would continue to accommodate the government. To his credit, I underestimated him.

The most recent instance I could find of a resignation of a Canadian deputy minister on a matter of principle was in 1979, when Deputy Minister of Finance William Hood resigned because the newly-elected Clark Government wanted to institute income tax deductibility for mortgage payments, something his department, as well as most of the economics profession, saw as an unwarranted subsidy. Clark replaced him with an external appointment, Grant Reuber, a former academic economist then a vice-president at BMO.

To confirm my recollection of the event, I found a reference online to a 1989 article entitled “Governments Come and Go, but What of Senior Civil Servants?” written by Jacques Bourgault and Stephane Dion. In this context, the irony is, to use a favourite Stephen Harper adjective, rich.

One difference between the two events is that Hood was parachuted into a job at the IMF. Given the abrupt circumstances of Sheikh’s resignation and the tone of Industry Minister Tony Clement’s response, he appears to have jumped without a parachute. This is even more to his credit.

The bigger issue is what happens when public servants, on moral or professional grounds, disagree with their political masters’ policies. The story of appeasement in the Thirties in the UK provides one answer: stay in place but leak documents, as quite a few civil servants in the Foreign Office did, thereby enabling then renegade Conservative backbencher Winston Churchill to attack the government publicly. Those public servants in StatsCan who have been leaking thus have a heroic figure to emulate.

The papers tell us that Sheikh has been replaced by Wayne Smith, an assistant chief statistician, on an acting basis. Is Smith prepared do the politicians’ bidding and ignore the professional opinion of his colleagues, not to mention his entire stakeholder community?

The Government has the right to appoint the head of StatsCan, and it could search outside the agency to find someone in business or academe to implement the voluntary long-form census. Maybe it will find such a person amongst Prime Minister Harper’s former academic mentors at the University of Calgary. Tom Flanagan perhaps?

Where this story could be going brings to mind a common situation in the United States, discussed in Rosemary O’Leary’s book The Ethics of Dissent: Managing Guerrilla Government. There are a number of agencies, most notably the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor, whose agendas the Republicans don’t endorse, and indeed that the Republican core would prefer to abolish. Republican presidents have appointed agency heads as well as other political appointees who are at war with their career public servants. The career public servants then begin to operate as guerrillas.

This would be a very unfortunate outcome for a public service that operates on an ethic of professionalism and neutrality. Very unCanadian too, but, unless the Harper Government reverses itself on the census long-form, it may be where we are headed.

The census issue not only refuses to go away but during the last week has become more contentious. While more and more voices are calling more loudly for retaining the mandatory long form, the government is sticking more adamantly with the voluntary form.

StatsCan is doing what public servants should be doing. They have accepted the government’s marching orders, but have indicated that to get a good picture of the population, they will have to send the form to a higher percentage of the population (one in three rather than one in five) and mount an advertising campaign. So we have the immediate irony, as we enter a period of fiscal constraint, that the voluntary long form will cost more than the compulsory long form.

Beyond the irony is a paradox. The politicians, most notably Industry Minister Tony Clement, who is carrying the can on this issue, continue to pander to the anti-government sentiment of their core supporters, telling us that the long census form is an element of the nanny state. In response to the retort that there have been only a handful of objections to the Privacy Commissioner, Clement is undermining that office by saying that people don’t think it is really independent, because it is only an arm of government. And Clement is also trashing the idea of public consultation, saying that the government was under no obligation to consult with organized interest groups that use the census.

When the Census happens next year, the advertising campaign will have to tell us why it is a good idea, even a patriotic duty, for those who get the long form to complete it, which will be exactly the opposite of Clement’s message.

Think for a minute about different instances when we give the government information. Generally, it is part of a transaction undertaken for another purpose. For example – and this was the subject of previous posts – to get a Nexus card, I had to provide lots of information, include the biometrics of an iris scan. But the quid pro quo was that I got the card. When we pay income tax, we provide lots of information, and the information allows the government to check whether we are meeting our obligations. In the case of the Census, there is no transaction involved, no immediate benefit. We provide the information – privacy-protected – so that the government can use it to design public policies that at some future date may benefit us.

How will this issue play out politically over the next few months? The Liberals appear to be getting interested in it, especially because it is one of the few where a clear principled difference can be made between them and the Conservatives. Will the NDP and Bloc support them, hence making it a test of confidence? Prime Minister Harper has said nothing, letting Tony Clement take the heat. Sooner or later, say Question Period when the House of Commons resumes in the fall, he will be drawn into it.

Finally, if the government persists with its position, next spring we will hear the advertising campaign and its message will be diametrically opposed to the Government’s. Will the Conservatives attempt to remain silent while the ads run? Certainly the Opposition will point out the contradiction between what the advertising campaign is saying and what the Government said previously. Conclusion: this is an originally technical issue that, having now been politicized, will continue to play for some time. Just watch.

The Harper Government

Around last year-end, there were massive complaints about the TTC’s ham-handed management of its regular annual fare increase. Here’s another, more local, complaint. The TTC has shut down the York Mills commuter parking lot that I, and hundreds of other riders, use. All the TTC website says it that it will be closed from May 29 to September 6. When you pass by the parking lot, it appears that it is being used for bus driver training, because the TTC has put up pilons and a simulated bus stop, and you see buses driving in circles.

This is a lot that is almost always full, even in summer, by 9 am. So the drivers have to go somewhere else, and this creates inconvenience, and likely encourages some of them to drive downtown. Yesterday I parked on the street near the Lawrence subway station, the closest to York Mills, and received a $15 ticket for exceeding the 3 hour on-street parking limit.

In past years, the TTC shut down the York Mills parking lot for bus training in August. I assume that because they didn’t have more protests they shut it down longer this year. And of course this was done in typical TTC fashion, with no explanation. But couldn’t the TTC have found some alternative space for the activity that wouldn’t have disrupted hundreds of commuters for an entire summer?

This is typical of the TTC’s arrogant and unimaginative approach to service. It can establish a forum on public service, but whatever is said at the forum doesn’t seem to affect day-to-day operations.

I’ve sent a complaint through the website, but don’t expect a quick reaction.

Enlightened organizations have bots that scan the Internet for any comments about them in the blogosphere, and get back to the blogger. I’ve had such responses on several occasions, but again don’t expect this from the TTC.

Speaking of disruptions, I posted in mid-May about how disruptive and expensive the G20 summit would be, and, as more and more organizations are shutting their doors for that weekend, it’s clear I was right on the money about that one.

The only thing to do is escape, so I won’t be posting next week. I’ll be back after the summit, and hopefully in a better mood.