Hi Martin,
Let me play the Devil's advocate for a moment.
In this day and age, certain type of govts would have already knew everything about you on ethnicity, education, employment and disability. They won't know which kind of occupations / industries you're in, but they can work out whether you're in employment and by whom from the taxman / benefits office, whether you're disabled from benefits office and your hospital records, your education from public exam records, and whether you had been convicted from police records.
The govt is probably doing the 20 or 30% just to double check if their central records is reasonably comprehensive and accurate.
About your fear of other countries adopting the same thing - I think you're right to fear!
Ada
________________________________________
From: A UK-based worldwide e-mail broadcast system mailing list [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martin Holt [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 27 July 2010 08:27
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Census or not?
Dear Alan,
You may be right (that the short form will be sent to *every* hosehold, and the paper might have got it wrong, but here is a snippet taken from the link that Quentin supplied:
"Previously, 20 per cent of Canadians households received the mandatory long-form census every five years, providing information on issues such as ethnicity, education, employment and disability. That questionnaire will now be replaced with the voluntary National Household Survey and sent to *one-third* of households."
I hope you are right.......
Best Wishes,
Martin Holt
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/StatsCan+boss+quits+over+census+mess/3305387/story.html#ixzz0urhsBXRL
Martin Holt
Medical Statistician
--- On Mon, 26/7/10, Alan Statistics <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Alan Statistics <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Census or not?
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, 26 July, 2010, 23:21
With Respect
The census short form is and undisputedly will continue to be sent to every household. The long form has previously been sent to one of every five short form recipients.
The proposed voluntary household survey would not be part of the census.
The change is not a cost-cutting move; it will increase expenditure by a lot since forms will now have to be printed and mailed to twice as many people.
Yours Sincerely,
Alan E. Dunne
----- Original Message ----- From: "John Mansfield" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 5:51 PM
Subject: Re: Census or not?
I salute his courage
Recent behaviour by big government globally (cf. Prof Nutt in the UK)
suggests that the various political masters think that science can be
commanded to their beck and call. I say think, hopefully again (if they
have thought once to start with). That stats Canada is beholden to the
elected officials is damning enough.
A simpler solution might have been to insist that without visiting every
Canadian, it should not be called a census. Deciding which of a 20% or 30%
sample to call a census seems to be about degrees of disingenuity
-----Original Message-----
From: A UK-based worldwide e-mail broadcast system mailing list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martin Holt
Sent: 26 July 2010 11:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Census or not?
For Heads of Quality, it is not uncommon, speaking from experience, for
one's masters to attempt to force a way forward that is ostensibly wrong, to
save money. Worse, they then expect you, as Head of Quality, to explain to
the customers why the company have reneged on its promises, and to try to
find a cheaper way forward with said customers. If Quality Managers, and
dare-I-say it, QPs, resigned every time this happened, on solid principles,
there would be a very rapid turnover of Heads of Quality across the clinical
diagnostics and pharmaceutical industries.
This link, however, is a bridge too far, and I understand the resignation
What effect will it have? Will his successor be more "compliant"? If so,
what effect will asking a third of households to voluntarily fill in the new
census have, compared to 20% of households being asked to fill in the longer
version? Will anyone be able to infer anything about Canada's people from
the new, voluntary census, with any VALIDITY (there's that word again)? I
think not.
My fear now, is that in our new "BIG Society", that the government will
think, "Hey, that'll save us a bundle...we'll go for that ! After all, look
~ Canada's done it !"
Does anyone know if this voluntary approach to a census has been adopted by
any other countries ?
Best to all,
Martin Holt
Martin Holt
Medical Statistician
--- On Sat, 24/7/10, Quentin Burrell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Quentin Burrell <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Census or not?
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Saturday, 24 July, 2010, 20:01
A colleague sent me the following:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/StatsCan+boss+quits+over+census+mess/33053
87/story.html
Any thoughts?
Quentin Burrell
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