By Lloyd Mackey

THREE of several dozen organizations whose leaders or researchers have spoken out in defence of the mandatory long form census are the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the United Church of Canada and the Canadian Jewish Congress.

All three make the point that they are reliant on census data to assist them in planning and program development that benefits each of their particular constituencies.

In a sense, they help to make the common point that both sides in this current dustup are trying, in their own separate ways, to emphasize.

That point is the need for dependable data. Industry minister Tony Clement maintains that the government wants that kind of data and is asking Statistics Canada if there is a way to get that data on a voluntary, rather than an intrusive, basis. StatsCan has categorically stated it cannot be done.

While a clearcut explanation as to why not has not yet been made public, I would submit that it probably has to do with the potential for 'skewing' that comes, arguably, from a survey that is less than totally random. Professional statisticians maintain that if a survey is not mandatory, some people will not respond and their data will not be included in the survey results.

That, from this perspective, leaves some unanswered questions. I want to leave them unanswered in today's OttawaWatch, but encourage readers to keep following the discussion.

Even as I write this, I am watching the census debate at the House of Commons industry, science and technology standing committee, which is interviewing witnesses dealing with the question. By the time readers see this, we will either have something sorted out or the discussion will continue. It will need resolving one way or another, in order for the long form to be a part of the 2011 census.

One facet for which I am watching, is a clear definition of the possibility of what Clement refers to as advocacy, rather than coercion, for achieving long form census results that are as close to unskewed as possibly. And I am also wondering how StatsCan can maintain that a long form the agency is permitting 160,000 people not to fill out without penalty is a genuinely mandatory instrument.

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I would like to shift to a topic that I have touched on recently -- the emergence of the 'big society' concept in British politics -- and what it might have to say both to governance and the role of faith-based groups in Canada.

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For this, I would refer OttawaWatch readers to two online Christian newspapers -- Christian Today (CT) and Christian Post (CP). The first has British roots; the second, American.

Both of them have been covering the emergence of the big society concept. They have especially watched it since it became, first of all, a part of the British Tory election campaign -- and, more latterly, has formed a part of the public policy approach of the new Tory/Lib Dem coalition government.

The big society concept, simply defined, is the approach that comes out of centre-right political thinking, that organizations -- both profit and non-profit -- be able to contribute positively to the reduction or elimination of poverty or oppression. The contrasting concept is the 'big state,' where the public sector controls or governs that contributory process.

The intriguing point that has emerged in the CP and CT stories has been a fairly strong positive response from Christian leaders. Quoted by CT, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams offered "two-and-a-half cheers" to the big society concept, suggesting it might prove to be a "watershed" for the nations.

Williams suggested the initiative "recognizes that good society is not simply one with lots of convincing and impressive rules and programs, but a society where people feel confident that they all have something to give, that it will be received and they will be able to receive from one another in the 'gift exchange.'"

Williams noted, further, that "at the heart of it all is the conviction that for a society to change, people need to change. Society will change, not by lots of individuals becoming nicer, but by people recognizing more and more deeply how much they depend on each other -- and how much they are impoverished by the poverty of their neighbour."

Some future OttawaWatch pieces will attempt to cite Canadian examples of the kind of thinking that is going into the 'big society' concept.

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

July 29/2010