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The census is only useful if (approximately) everyone co-operates. The same goes for lots of other things: carpool lanes, anti-littering bylaws and jury duty, to name three. The nature of collective action problems is that it’s never in one’s individual rational interest to take part in the solution; it’s better to simply free ride off the efforts of others. This is why one of the core tasks of government is to enforce participation — and this means imposing penalties for not co-operating.

This is where social capital comes in — or social trust, or social cohesion, or whatever you want to call it. It’s not feasible to governments to micromanage their citizens and enforce their co-operation in their daily activities, even if they wanted to. To a very great extent, the smooth functioning of society relies not on government enforcement, but on people’s willingness to go along with the rules, so long as they believe that everyone else is obeying them as well. Everything depends on a willingness to trust strangers, and to reward their trust in you.

It’s worth dwelling on this point, because one of the most debilitating consequences of the Conservatives’ time in office has been the creation of a constituency for whom the census is now a highly-politicized symbol, instead of being a neutral instrument for good governance. While the government can force co-operation, this isn’t the same as restoring mutual trust.

You can’t expect people to take your concerns seriously if you won’t do the same for them. To the extent that their concerns are about privacy, the most promising way of restoring that lost trust is to demonstrate the extent to which concerns about privacy are taken seriously, and to show some flexibility on the details. For example, questions about religion have been dropped from this year’s census questionnaire.

Social capital is difficult to build, and easy to destroy.The former Conservative government demolished a big chunk of our social capital when it blew up the census, and it will take time and effort to restore it. Posting selfies with census forms can’t hurt, and just might help.

National Post

Stephen Gordon is a professor of economics at Laval University.