How much does the government really need to know about you?
A federal government national census is conducted every five years and most Canadians have no problems providing basic essential information such as date of birth, gender, marital status or mother tongue.
But should the government be asking us what time we leave for work in the morning, whether our house needs renovations or how many bedrooms we have? Apparently the 160,000 Canadians who refused to fill out the long-form during the last census, a five-fold increase over 1981, thought some of the questions were over the top.
The Conservative government recently announced that the long-form version of the 2011 Census will be voluntary believing the majority of Canadians want the freedom to choose how much of their private lives they want to share with the government.
Some of us have been around long enough to remember the famous quip of then Prime Minister Trudeau when he told reporters the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. So why does Michael Ignatieff believe Canadians should be forced to divulge intimate, private details about their personal lives?
Most Canadians want their privacy protected. The government is taking action to protect them.
Gerald Hall, Parksville, B.C.
