OTTAWA—Industry Minister Tony Clement acknowledged Wednesday it may well be that only a minority of Canadians support the government’s decision to scrap the long-form census — but he says that’s good enough.

Clement said the Conservative government is not reversing it decision to kill the 40-page mandatory census and replace it with a voluntary form, which critics say will come nowhere near providing the valuable data needed.

“Even if it is a minority of Canadians, they still have a legitimate ground to have a conversation with the government (that) in the 21st century there may be a better way of doing things,” he told reporters.

His comments followed the release of a poll showing the majority of Canadians want the long-form census reinstated.

The Conservatives scrapped the long form, arguing that it was too intrusive and coercive. They insist the threat of a jail term — although it’s never happened — for not filling out the form did not sit well with many Canadians.

“At the end of the day I stand by what I think is a pretty important point that we are actually trying to find a fair and reasonable balance that still gets us some useful and usable data that at the same time meets the concerns,” Clement said.

The government’s position stands in contrast to an Angus Reid poll released Wednesday stating that the majority of Canadians believe the long-form census should be reinstated.

The survey, which found almost half of Canadians believe the Harper government should reverse itself, is further proof the controversy over replacing it with an optional voluntary detailed census has not subsided.

Many minority groups, social scientists, provincial and municipal governments, churches and charities oppose the end to the mandatory long-form census. Opposition parties have vowed to bring it back by getting rid of the jail term for refusing to fill out the form.

So far, the government, and in particular Clement, refuses to budge. Clement even said if only one Canadian complained about the mandatory long-form census that was good enough to kill it.

“There have been more and more complaints each round (of the census) every five years,” said Clement. “We have had many, many complaints about the census but I can’t quantify the exact number.”

“The idea that there are a whole bunch of intrusive questions that you have to answer on pain of criminal sanction does not sit well with every Canadian,” he said, adding if he did one thing wrong it was waiting too long into the census process to end the form.

The Angus Reid online survey of 1,012 Canadian adults released Wednesday found that 49 per cent of respondents think the government should change its mind while 29 per cent said it should stick by its guns.

The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, is considered accurate plus or minus 3.1 per cent 19 times out of 20.

According to the pollster, 53 per cent said the long-form census yields information that “is important to make policy decisions in all areas of public service and should remain mandatory.”

And 54 per cent support the opposition efforts to amend the Statistics Act to include the long-form census. Critics have said the Conservative’s decision to scrap it was for ideological reasons designed to appeal to the party’s base support.

At least one Conservative has backed away from his claim that his constituency office received a thousand calls and emails a day about the intrusiveness of the long-form census.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“Yeah, it was about a thousand a day, but I’m not sure from that thousand how many were on the census itself,” former industry minister Maxime Bernier told the CBC in an interview outside the House of Commons on Tuesday.

“So we had a discussion with my staff and we cannot prove it because all these emails have been deleted from that time, four years ago,” he said.

Read more about: