Greens Support Mandatory Long Form Census But Would Eliminate Penalty

OTTAWA -- The Green Party of Canada supports a mandatory process for Canada's long-form census but says that a legal penalty for non-compliance goes too far.

"We need to ensure that Canadians understand the usefulness of the type of data contained in the long-form census but we must do so through a process that builds community and strengthens citizenship." said Eric Walton, Green International Affairs Critic.  "It is far better to engage in an informed dialogue with someone concerned about completing the long census than to come down hard on them with legal sanctions for not disclosing what they may consider to be confidential information - even if it is untraceable to them."

"We need adequate information to set policy and the data needs to be reliable," said Green Leader Elizabeth May.  "Neither a voluntary process nor coercion will result in dependable data.  The long-form census is important to informed decision making on a wide range of policies.  If we need to better address privacy concerns, we should do that but to make it completely voluntary would distort the census data. "

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Contact Information:
Debra Eindiguer
Press Secretary
C: 613.240.8921
media@greenparty.ca
www.greenparty.ca