Twirling, twirling

The lonely (but principled) Industry Minister has announced the government intends to eliminate the never-honoured threat of jail time that is attached to the census, thus resolving one of the government’s primary complaints about the mandatory long-form.

The government continues to plan to make the long-form voluntary, but now, six weeks after announcing the new format, Mr. Clement is concerned the move to a voluntary survey could fail to meet the government’s obligations under the Official Languages Act and so a few questions will be taken off the voluntary survey and added to the mandatory short-form.

This change, Mr. Clement tweets, is on “new advice” from Statistics Canada. This on the same day that, based on newly released documents, the Liberals are charging that Mr. Clement has previously misrepresented the advice of Statistics Canada.