OTTAWA—The Harper government has adopted a deliberate strategy of hiding information from Canadians in order to advance a right-wing social and justice agenda, Liberals charge.

Liberal MP John McCallum pointed Thursday to two recent examples to prove the point: The government’s decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census and its refusal to release a favourable report on the effectiveness of the long-gun registry.

He called the approach “a triumph of ignorance over knowledge, a triumph of ideology over science.”

And he said the recent moves demonstrate that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is afraid of an informed electorate.

“Stephen Harper doesn’t like to let facts or truth get in the way of his ideological agenda,” McCallum told a news conference Thursday.

“He will stop at nothing to dumb down debate to a catch phrase.”

McCallum said the decision to turn the compulsory long-form census into a voluntary survey is “one of the most visible examples of one of the most fundamental shortcomings” of the Harper government.

He said it’s aimed at robbing federal, provincial and municipal governments of the reliable data they need to deliver progressive social programs. It would skew “the picture of what Canada really looks like” because low-income and minority Canadians will be less likely to fill out a voluntary form.

The move to a voluntary survey has been widely denounced by some 300 groups, including statisticians, social scientists, economists, religious groups, educators, doctors and municipal councils.

McCallum said when the House of Commons returns next month Liberals will introduce a private member’s bill to restore the 2011 long-form census and prevent governments from tinkering with it in future without the consent of Parliament.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff also weighed in on the census debate Thursday as he continued his summer tour of Canada.

“I’ve done 126 events across Canada literally, coast to coast to coast, and there isn’t a single person who believes the Harper story on the census,” Ignatieff said in the Montreal suburb of Saint-Bruno.

“The Harper story on the census is you should be very, very scared of the census-taker, he’s going to invade your personal freedom. I’ve never heard a more ridiculous story in my life.”

McCallum also cited the government’s refusal to release the annual RCMP evaluation of the gun registry’s effectiveness as another example of Harper’s penchant for stifling facts.

Opposition parties maintain the government has been sitting on the report for six months and wants to keep it hidden until after a crucial September vote on Tory backbencher Candice Hoeppner’s private member’s bill to scrap the controversial registry.

According to the CBC, the report concludes the registry is cost effective, efficient and “an important tool for law enforcement.”

“Clearly the Conservatives want to prevent parliamentarians and Canadians from seeing important information about the cost and effectiveness of the long-gun registry before an important vote,” McCallum said.

“I am calling on Stephen Harper to get over his fear of facts, to release that report and to prove that he is not afraid of having an informed electorate.”

RCMP Asst. Commissioner Pierre Perron, the newly-appointed head of the national firearms program, said Thursday the report is currently being translated and will be made available as soon as it is done. The force’s audit and evaluation branch will be responsible for distributing it, he added.

Perron was chosen last week to replace Marty Cheliak, an ardent defender of the registry whose removal was seen by opposition parties as another example of the government suppressing dissent.

The government denied it had anything to do with Cheliak’s reassignment.

Earlier this week, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews maintained the report on the registry is irrelevant in any event.

“Canadians don’t need another report to know that the long-gun registry is very efficient at harassing law-abiding farmers and outdoors enthusiasts, while wasting billions of taxpayers’ dollars,” he said in an email statement.

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“They don’t need another report to know that the registry does nothing to prevent crime.”

That’s the same line his office gave last spring when documents obtained through Access to Information showed the government kept the 2008 report on the gun registry secret until after the first vote on Hoeppner’s bill last fall.

According to the documents, the government was required by statute to table the report by last Oct. 22 but did not do so until Nov. 6 — two days after Hoeppner’s bill passed second reading, with the support of eight Liberals and 12 New Democrats.

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