Making the long form of 2011 Census voluntary - a good start

By now if you live in Canada and keep up with the news you have heard about the announcement made by the Harper Conservatives with regard to next years Census. Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement announced that the "long form" of the Census called the National Household Survey (see left) will be voluntary rather than mandatory as it has been in the past. Clement said that this was actually recommended by StatsCan, but rumours within StatsCan spin this story a different way. Whatever the truth it seems to be a tiny positive step that the Conservatives should be commended for.
Of course that's not what the opposition thinks and Clement's statement has been criticized (not surprisingly) by a large number organizations that claim they need the information from the long form to do proper planning. Many groups brought out there big guns, the C. D. Howe Institute brought out its President, William Robson.
In the Globe and Mail last week Robson admits that the long form is intrusive - "Knowledge comes at a price". But he goes on to show that's OK and he has no idea how the term "libertarian" fits into the politics of Canada or anywhere else. Let me quote one of the juicier bits:

"If you are one of the many Canadians who would like government to do less but do it better, this spectacle risks making you tear your hair. The state’s role in our economy and society has grown prodigiously over the past century – and not only radical libertarians worry about the resulting cost to prosperity and freedom. As governments’ reach grows, however, so does the need for information with which citizens can hold them to account. In eliminating the census long form, the libertarians have taken out the wrong target."

I've read that paragraph a few times and I can't believe Robson does not see the contradictions. He sort of laments the fact that the "state’s role in our economy and society has grown prodigiously over the past century" - it's a "worry", but as it grows it needs more information so citizens can hold government to account. Huh, it's the citizens that will suffer? Does he think libertarians would want more information from government to keep an eye on government? I'm shaking my head, but that is only part of why Robson thinks we need the long form. He mentions education, we need the long form to sample graduating students to see if they comply with the government mandated curriculum in the government mandated schools. On immigration, we need the long form to better plan the Canadian labour market. Then there is health care:

"The state plays a huge role in Canadian health care: Good information on personal and neighbourhood characteristics can help us know if we are healthier or sicker as a result. It redistributes income on a colossal scale: The long-form census can reveal much about the successes and failures of these programs. In all these areas, good information helps Canadians hold their governments to account."

Is that a great quote or what? I'm certain the next Census is going to give us the required information so we can fix health care, shorten those queues, improve the technology and justify that "colossal" redistribution of income right?

Just one point on the immigration. My parents came to Canada 62 years ago with virtually nothing but me. There was no government program for immigrants, no English classes, no co-ordination with skills and the labour force; my parents figured it out with help from various charitable agencies, family and friends. It worked amazingly well, my family and the thousands of others that came from war-torn Europe managed without government central planning, detailed statistics, charts and graphs and all that Statistics Canada does with more than half-a-billion dollars a year of our tax money.  

 

The problem with democracy

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 11, 1947

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.

And

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

All those pithy quotes come from this very helpful site - it is interesting browsing.  There is truth in all of the quotes and my favourite is the first one from

 Churchill, 

often misquoted.  I have always had trouble with the idea of democracy, even as a young boy I realized that the two words "wisdom" and "majority" are not always correlated.

For libertarians democracy is problematic much like Churchill's quote. In the present day, those countries that are democracies tend to have the most freedoms available to its citizens. When problems occur freedoms are often "suspended" even in democracies and frequently under the guise of protecting the majority. Those of us in the Toronto area recall how the recent G20 debacle interfered with daily life, freedom and commerce in the downtown core.  Clearly democracy and liberty are correlated but sometimes not guaranteed in practice. In fact, just the presence of the G20 meetings and the security disruption caused, was to me neither democratic or in any way advancing freedom no matter what local politicians said.

Democracy is also intrusive. If allowed, governments that are democracies, will grow by claiming responsibilities that rightfully belong to individuals or groups. When this happens, governments that claim they know best will confiscate resources (taxes) and spend them often inefficiently. When taxation becomes too intrusive governments will amass debt, with the promise of repayment underpinned by the 

future 

productivity of the population. Expanding the debt while increasing government responsibility is characteristic of almost all of today's democracies and it is unsustainable.

This week Neil Reynolds writes in the Globe and Mail about the disintegration of the welfare state in Europe, democracies that are living beyond their means and it's a warning to us.     

God and the Charter

So last week I suggested that the Queen (British Crown) be phased out of Canadian law. As unlikely as that may seem, given the constitutional changes required, here is another windmill I'm going to tilt at.
Yesterday the National Post highlighted a discussion that occurred because of an unusual interpretation of the Charter by a Superior Court judge in Quebec.  The judge defended a private (sort of - they are funded 60% by Quebec) Jesuit high school of its right to teach Roman Catholic ethics and religion rather than the mandated Quebec provincial curriculum. The judge used the Preamble to the Charter ("Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law") to make his case.
This presented an opportunity for CFI to get some publicity and its executive director Justin Trottier to point out that the Preamble is inappropriate for about 25% of Canadians who are agnostics or atheists. Bloody right! Furthermore the Preamble and section 2 of the Charter are a bit contradictory. Section 2 states that everyone has fundamental freedoms including "freedom of conscience and religion" which of course does not preclude atheists but I hope you see what I mean.
Again this is not a big deal and nothing will happen as a result, but the last phrase in the Preamble is what makes Canada what it is. The rules are important and need to be tested and sometimes tweaked, and this document (as imperfect as it might be), and others need to be part of the fabric of daily life. 

Suicide, politics and economics

A study that appeared in the British Medical Journal this week suggests that the $6-million state-of-the-art suicide barrier built over the Bloor Street Viaduct in Toronto works wonderfully. No one has jumped from that bridge in the 4 years since the barrier was constructed, however those who wanted to jump went to other bridges. That's right, the number of suicides by jumping has not changed in the city (56.4 per year pre-barrier vs. 56.6 per year post-barrier). The entire very readable report is posted here.  On average 9.3 people per year jumped from the Bloor Viaduct, but in the macabre economics of suicide that number did not change. Interestingly the overall number of suicides in the city has decreased significantly over the same time span.
Hindsight is 20/20 sure, but politics in Canada on a city scale or a national scale is fairly predictable. The construction of the bridge barrier is a perfect example of how other people's money is misallocated daily by elected officials at all levels of government. To me this illustrates a phrase commonly used among Austrian economists "what is seen versus what is unseen". If you go to the Ludwig von Mises Institute's website (a wonderful place to explore) and type that phrase into the search box you will see it produces almost 150 results. It is a common theme in Austrian economics that refers to misappropriated resources. Yes, the $6-million solved the problem for the Bloor Viaduct (seen), but did not solve the overall problem of jumping from bridges and has left the city with fewer resources to solve other real problems (unseen).
As this story circulates through the media and gets bounced off a few "experts", you can be sure that no politician involved will admit this was in any way an error, but rather that more money needs to be spent going after the root problems of suicide prevention. Count on it.