Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to scrap the mandatory long form of the national census will threaten millions of dollars worth of funding for multicultural programs and—on a wider scale—undermine the integrity of information used to apply employment equity legislation across the country, say pollsters, MPs and visible minority leaders.

The surprise measure that shocked a range of professional, volunteer and community organizations earlier this summer is entirely at odds with the Conservative government's attempts to woo voters among immigrant and visible minority communities for the past four years, they say.

There is speculation that, with the Conservatives making little headway in that campaign, Prime Minister Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.), aside from his stated reasons for axing the mandatory long questionnaire on grounds he believes it's wrong to compel citizens to reveal private information about their households and background, may also be abandoning the campaign to win visible minority voter support and focus instead on components of the electorate that oppose special consideration for those communities.

"It's not just the multicultural programs, the whole question of employment equity in the workforce, which is a huge issue, is based on analysis of this [census data], things like legislated employment equity, they're talking billions of dollars in economic activity, if this isn't properly understood, and it won't be anymore," Ekos pollster Frank Graves told The Hill Times.

Statistics Canada, based on results from the 2006 census, identifies the visible minority population in Ontario at 2.7 million. British Columbia has the next highest visible minority population, at one million, followed by Quebec with 654,000 and Alberta, with a visible minority population of 454,000.

Despite the negative reaction behind the scenes from visible minority and immigrant communities, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Alta.) has been notably silent publicly on the census controversy.

"He's got to be beside himself, they've been working for years to till that soil and, all of a sudden, they've just shot themselves in the foot," said Mr. Graves. When the Conservative Party invited journalists into an otherwise private caucus meeting on Parliament Hill earlier this month, Mr. Kenney, sitting beside P.E.I. Conservative Senator Mike Duffy, did not appear to applaud along with other Senators and MPs at the end of a speech Prime Minister Harper delivered.

When news of the census change first emerged through an unannounced publication on June 26 of a secret cabinet decision earlier that month, there was speculation the Conservatives, among other things, may have taken the step in part to attract support from visible minorities, since some members of their communities are among the four largest demographics making up a fraction of households who are reluctant or have difficulty filling out the detailed census form. Statistics Canada specifies the other three demographic characteristics requiring door-to-door enumeration to complete the forms as age, immigration status and aboriginal status.

Statistics Canada told The Hill Times that for the 2006 census, between 65 per cent and 70 per cent of the long form questionnaires were returned without a need for enumerators to collect the completed forms. After enumeration and follow-up interviews, 93.7 per cent of all long forms were completed. The completion rate for the mandatory shorter form of the census was 97.2 per cent after enumeration, for an overall completion rate of 96.5 per cent.

Statistics Canada has estimated in internal memos that only 50 per cent or less of the long forms would be completed if the process is voluntary, a figure statisticians agree would make the data virtually useless for the kind of detailed applications information from the long questionnaires has been use for.

Leaders of South Asian and Chinese Canadian communities, the two largest visible minority populations in Canada, say visible minority leaders and members of the communities strongly oppose the change.

Andy Mark, executive director of the Toronto Chapter of the Chinese Canadian National Council, told The Hill Times the information from the long form, which up to now went to 20 per cent of Canadian households every five years and is called the "gold standard" by professional statisticians, is crucial for the council and its chapters across the country.

"We use it to literally create projects and programs around the demographic within the Chinese community... If they have a better solution they're not saying it," he said.

Satwinder Gosal, a lawyer and community leader in the Sikh South Asian community in the region of Peel near Toronto, said information from the long form, which is used as the sample base to estimate community profiles and populations across Canada, is crucial for a range of programs that filter down to the grassroots through the provincial government and local governments. Among the most important is "diversity," he said, to ensure local boards and agencies roughly reflect the populations they serve.

He said without the long form information, it would be impossible to establish benchmarks. "The logical question is, how would you know?" said Mr. Gosal, a member of the Region of Peel Police Services board, who also said his opinions were his own, and not the board's.

The head of an intercultural community services agency in British Columbia said his group is "extremely disappointed" with the government decision and added elimination of the detailed community and household information will make it impossible to continue existing programs for Canadian visible minorities as well as new immigrants.

"It will be just stepping in the dark without the census knowledge," Charan Gill, chief executive officer of the Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society of Surrey, B.C.

The head of the Canadian Sikh Association, a fledgling South Asian lobby group that claims now about 5,000 members, says the census is critical for provision of government services in the Brampton, Ont., Montreal and Vancouver areas.

"Some of the concern ... [is], it's always a way where we can focus programs for recent immigrants. English as a Second Language courses, school boards obviously rely on the information. In Brampton, the city has put up a community centre and they actually put cricket pitches, because they had the data saying there was a large Sikh population there and obviously cricket is a past-time with us."

Ottawa pollster Nik Nanos agreed it was unlikely, as some had believed, that Prime Minister Harper insisted on the census change in part to appeal to voters in visible minority groups who are apprehensive or reluctant to fill out the long form of the census.

"Any rationalization to say this is a vote winner is a stretch, for any group of Conservatives," said Mr. Nanos. "Even if you're a Conservative leaning voter, you're probably wondering how the government could be distracted on a form as opposed to governing and focusing on fiscal restraint and stimulus and stuff like that."

Mr. Graves, however, disagrees. "This is one of their favourite bugbears," said Mr. Graves. "They believe that multiculturalism was a political sop invented by Trudeau to appeal to the ethnic vote. Their core base, this is why it's always been a rough fit, their core base, do you think they're happy reaching out to all the multi-culture communities? I can show you the data, they are by far the most allergic to multiculturalism."

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