Issue Management

In all the pages and pages of Census e-mails and documents released Tuesday, the excerpt above is probably the most telling. Just 2 days before the Census changes were made public, an internal Communications Plan was circulated proclaiming "These changes will not have a negative impact on the quality of the Census. Response rates and data quality will be comparable to previous censuses."

In the margin was a lone voice of reason - "Really? Won't some stakeholders argue the opposition?".

I'd say that's the understatement of the year.

This document reveals so much about what went wrong for the government and how one of the unlikeliest fiascos in Canadian political history was conceived. Just two days before the move was announced, they solicited "initial comments" on the plan...and it occurred to the government some people might oppose it.

Presumably this "grid on reactions" was heavy on passive aggressive tweeting.

Most alarming was the party line - that the response rate would be comparable and these changes would not have any negative impact on the quality of the data. This, despite warnings to the contrary from Statistics Canada three months earlier:


In short, Clement had been warned by the experts but decided to forge ahead. Rather than mount a reasoned defense of these changes, his strategy was to hope no one paid attention - after all, the Queen was in town, the World Cup was in full swing, and it was summertime! And really, who enjoys talking about statistics in the summertime? (besides me)

So Clement's office employed a "communications strategy" which removed all mentions of their involvement in this decision, in the hopes they wouldn't have to do any communicating:



They were not prepared, and it shows in the aftermath. Three days after the change was announced, Clement's Communications Director e-mailed StatsCan asking if any other G8 countries used voluntary censuses. This is a fact so basic you'd need it for any sort of communications strategy - clearly, there was no expectation they'd actually have to defend the move.

Two weeks later, his office was asking questions about what this change meant when it came to releasing data 92 years later (as is done for Census data) - to me, this isn't so much a communications problem, as a sign they hadn't at all considered the ramifications of their actions.

Clement himself had his facts wrong on his first public statement about the changes (on Twitter, 3 days later), and he did not issue a real defence until 9 days after the change was announced, when he first mentioned the "coercion" argument (on Twitter). He answered questions for the first time two days later - again on Twitter, and again it showed he did not fully understand the issue.

At this point, the government was still hoping the issue would die. Sure, statisticians were angry and there had been newspaper editorials but the story was just too boring to last longer than a week or two. After all, it wasn't like Helena Guergis was involved in it.

But the story didn't die. So sometime around July 15th, the government decided to fight back. Clement's office asked StatsCan for information about "Jedi responses" and prosecutions (yes, 3 weeks into this story, they still weren't aware no one has ever gone to jail over not filling out a Census form). Three days later, Dmitri Soudas sent out a letter on the topic. The first mention of the PMO in any of the released documents falls on this same weekend, so it seems likely this was when they first started taking it seriously (how could they not after watching Clement flail around?). That was also when Maxime Bernier started pontificating, either by coincidence or PMO design.

Clement also began doing more interviews on the topic.

In retrospect, he should have stuck to Twitter.

Despite knowing very well that StatsCan had spoken against the change (and had begun saying things in e-mails like "with the utmost respect, the answer you provided is factually incorrect"), Clement made it sound like everything was hunky dory at StatsCan.

This, despite the Head Statistician making it perfectly clear he was not cool with this. Notice how he suggests editing the following statement:


To this:


Despite all evidence to the contrary, Clement kept up the idea that StatsCan supported the move. At McGill. In a Globe & Mail interview. His office kept pushing for Sheikh to validate the government's decision - something they had made it clear they could not do. As StatsCan e-mails show, they believed Clement had "decided to put the ball in [their] court".

So on July 21st, Munir Sheikh resigned. By putting the ball in Sheikh's court, Clement turned a bad news story into the Great Census Crisis of 2010.

And now, thanks to these documents, the story has morphed into one of whether or not Tony Clement lied. Generally speaking, stories about lies and cover ups are easier for the general public to digest than ones on survey sample methodology.

This can all be traced back to that first "won't some stakeholders argue the opposite" comment I posted off the top. Simply put, Clement's office didn't understand what they were doing and didn't expect anyone to care.

As a result, we're now into week 7 of a story that simply refuses to die. So if Tony Clement feels lonely, he really has no one to blame but himself.


For background on Census issue, you can read "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Census (But Were Afraid To Ask)"

As the call for state sanctioned coercion grows...

Via Aaron Wherry, a non-random sampling of opposition to the government's plan to defile the Census:

To those who oppose the government’s changes to the census you can now add the Statistical Society of Canada, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Canadian Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities, the Executive Council of the Canadian Economics Association, the director of the Prentice Institute at the University of Lethbridge, the senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian Institute of Planners, the Canadian Association for Business Economics, and the editorial boards of the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Calgary Herald, Winnipeg Free Press and Globe and Mail.

They join the co-chairman of the Canada Census Committee, Ancestry.ca, city planners in Calgary and Red Deer, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the former head of Statistics Canada, and the editorial boards of the Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette, Edmonton Journal and Victoria Times-Colonist.

And hot off the presses, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario has sent Clement an open letter decrying the move. Also, Pundits Guide talks about how the Census is used, and Susan Delacourt finds it a wee bit odd that a political party which probably knows your voting record, ethnicity, and favourite TV show has issues with Stats Canada collecting Census information. Colby Cosh does link to one of the few supporters of the government's decision...and promptly rips him a new one.

Meanwhile, Tony Clement has yet to offer up an explanation over 140 characters for his decision, focusing instead on more important issues.

Lindsay Lohan goes to jail. Another example of state coercion?

OK, OK. The headline has little to do with this post, but I figured no one would read it if they deduced this was the third straight post on the friggin' Census. So indulge me for a moment and don't worry - next week, I'll get back to more important topics, like making fun of politicians in cowboy hats (which reminds me, please e-mail me any pictures you snap of politicians at the Stampede!).

Although Tony Clement was quiet in his initial decision to defile the Census, he has defended the move over Twitter, showing the eloquence and reason we've come to expect from the man who found a way to lose 4 elections within a 2 year span. Via Wherry, here's a selection of Tony's tweets:

TonyClement_MP @wicary Actually the Long Form is still around & will be going to more Cdns–minus the state coercion.
Harbles @TonyClement_MP However the statistical randomness is gone making the data skewed.
TonyClement_MP @Harbles Wrong. Statisticians can ensure validity w larger sample size
stephenfgordon @TonyClement_MP Wrong. Large samples can’t fix sample selection biases.
TonyClement_MP @stephenfgordon Which is why proper weighting will be used, as always the case
stephenfgordon @TonyClement_MP Where will the weights come from? Other voluntary surveys get their weights from the census.
c_9 @TonyClement_MP But weighting is done based on CENSUS DATA. Can’t weight the original data. Answers to these concerns somewhere?
TonyClement_MP @c_9 Folks! There is STILL a mandatory Census!
stephenfgordon @TonyClement_MP How can we reweight for education and income using short form data?

I know if I pointed out that the Minister of Industry shows a glaring lack of understanding of how the Census and statistics in general work, I'd come across sounding like one of those elitists he hates so much. So I'll refrain from pointing that out.

Besides, Clement made this decision despite the objections of the experts at Stats Canada so I don't think he really cares about the science behind it (Tony Clement motto: "Science is for elites"). This isn't too surprising from the guy who thinks he knows more about safe injection sites than Canadian doctors.

No, Tony makes it clear he's making this move to spare Canadians from "state coercion".

Now, to the best of my knowledge, there aren't any documented instances of Census workers using Jack Bauer style interrogation techniques, holding a knife to someone's eye and screaming "Who...do...you...work...for?". So I'll presume Tony is referring to the threat of a $500 fine or 3 months in jail for not completing the Census.

Let's put aside the fact that no one ever actually goes to jail for not filling out the Census and look at Clement's claim. His argument is that threatening to send someone to jail for breaking the law is coercion. This, from the "tough on crime" party.

Equally perplexing is that the short form will remain mandatory. So presumably, Canadians will still be "coerced" into completing their short form. I'd really like an explanation from Tony why short form coercion is acceptable when long form coercion isn't.

In fairness to Clement, he did also raise the issue of "intrusiveness" in another tweet. Personally, I don't think asking 1/5th of Canadians to fill out a form every 5 years is overly intrusive when the information remains 100% confidential. I'm not aware of a single instance where the anonymity of Census data has been compromised but, if this has occured, I invite the Minister of Industry to tweet about it.

Given the backlash we've seen to this move, Clement owes us more than a 140 character explanation.