Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Long-form census revealed!

I've long been a fan of Industry Minister Tony Clement. Back when he was an early promoter of merging the Reform and Tory parties I thought to myself "Well that just makes sense." In 2008 when he was federal health minister I cheered when he tried to shut down Vancouver's Insite safe injection site (needles creep me out).

But I wasn't sure about this long-form census stuff. A lot of people who can count really high seemed pretty mad about the government getting rid of it. I didn't know what all the fuss was about so I tried to get a hold of an actual version of the census.

After a little digging I came across a preliminary version of the 2011 long-form census that had leaked onto the internet. I've got to say, I totally agree with Tony. The questions are just way too invasive and personal to subject your everyday citizen to. For example,


42) How much money did you make last year?

43) How much money would you like to have made last year?

48) How many bedrooms are in your neighbour's house?

53) Describe, in detail, your reaction to the LOST finale.

59) Done anything illegal we should know about?

66) Totally hypothetically, if we were to sell off one of the territories, which one would you miss the least?

70) So what are you wearing?

82) What is your child-to-Jonas Brothers poster ratio? (See calculation chart attachment J)

89) Do you trust that your answers to these census questions are totally anonymous, Larry?

103) With one (1) being 'abstinent' and five (5) being 'aficionado', rate your frequency of casual, unprotected sex.

112) Do you find this census too onerous and confusing? Phrase your answer in the form of a haiku.

116) Ah, I was totally going to ask you something but it's escaping me at the minute. It'll come to me later.

116. b) Oh Christ, this is totally going to drive me nuts.

133) Have you watched CPAC in the last two (2) weeks? How about ever?

146) Have you ever thought about raisins? I mean really thought about them.

167) Including yourself, how many persons in your household have watched the classic 1985 Tim Curry movie Clue?

169) Have you ever felt an inappropriate attraction to someone you're related to? Does it bother you that we can put you in jail if you don't answer this question?

201) Trudeau - visionary or dick?