Does Stats Canada Tell People to Commit Census Crimes?

The government threatens citizens with fines and/or jail if they do not fill out the census.

A lot of people remarkably think this is a civilized way to collect information, but we’ll put that issue aside for now.

Here’s the hilarious thing, based on my own recent experience and reports from other individuals: If you tell a Stats Canada employee you have concerns about privacy or violent threats about not filling out surverys or anything like that, they will tell you to “make something up.”

I am no lawyer but I think this is illegal under Section 31 of the Statistics Act:

False or unlawful information

31 Every person who, without lawful excuse,

• (a) refuses or neglects to answer, or wilfully answers falsely, any question requisite for obtaining any information sought in respect of the objects of this Act or pertinent thereto that has been asked of him by any person employed or deemed to be employed under this Act, or

• (b) refuses or neglects to furnish any information or to fill in to the best of his knowledge and belief any schedule or form that the person has been required to fill in, and to return the same when and as required of him pursuant to this Act, or knowingly gives false or misleading information or practises any other deception thereunder

is, for every refusal or neglect, or false answer or deception, guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to both.

Isn’t that funny? The government will spend a lot of money telling you how important the census is for our country’s future and also threaten you if you don’t complete the census truthfully, because that’s a crime.

But government employees will tell you to make stuff up if you find the census obnoxious and immoral. Which shows they don’t really take the census or the law seriously.

So does the government even care about the census? Sounds like a pointless boondoggle.

The census is dumb.