Cansus '81: Costly Invasion of Privacy

by Walter Boytinck
April 1981

The Census is scandalous. It is the self-indulgence of some bureaucrats who would like a lot of information from us to keep themselves busy and to justify their salaries.

It is time that all Canadians "stand up and be counted" not by nosey bureaucrats but by protesting this waste of money to collect largely irrelevant but often very private information.

The questions to which these bureaucrats want answers go far beyond their proper authority. Under Section 8 of the B.N.A. Act, it states that the population of the provinces shall be counted. That means they count me, my wife, and my four children. Nothing else.

"Census" in one dictionary means "the official counting or enumeration of people" and it is referred to in the B.N.A. Act because the basis of representation in the House of Commons is to be by population. The census should be restricted to the constitutionally mandated enumeration every ten years. That means counting heads -- nothing else.

The 1976 Census cost $86 million. $20 million was spent on designing the form. One 1981 form is six pages long, while the other, which every fifth householder will be asked to complete, is 24 pages long!

The bureaucrats are going too far in the scope of questions they want us to answer. They have no business asking who is visiting you temporarily or whether you live in a house, tent or a railroad car. Other questions asked include:

what your income is from wages, etc.
what your religion is
whether your house needs repairs (whose doesn't?)
what your mortgage payments are
how many bathrooms you have
what you would expect to sell your house for
your educational level
where you lived 5 years ago
how many children you have
the date of your first marriage
how many hours you worked last week

Much of this information is already available. For instance, names are with the Registrar of Births or the Department of Immigration. The names of those who have died are registered with the Registrar of Deaths. Information on a person's marital status is also available elsewhere.

Mother tongue information should be readily available from immigration statistics and birthdates and sex distribution could be had from other sources.

Only interventionist governments need mountains of statistics. Consumers and businessmen, being part of the marketplace, make little use of government-gathered statistics. In 1976, approximately 59% of statistics were used by other governmental departments.

Bureaucrats and central planners, who are really outside of the marketplace, need statistics so that they can "plan" the lives of others.

When will government stop this waste of our hard-earned dollars? What will you do about it?

Walter J. Boytinck is a Vancouver lawyer and Vice-president of Human Action to Limit Taxes.