On Tuesday, just the second day of the fall session in the House of Commons, every single question in a lengthy and highly contentious Question Period was devoted to the issue of the elimination of the mandatory long-form census. While the opposition claimed to be defending science — “It is clear that by eliminating the long form census the Reform Conservative government is hoping to dilute science—which is appalling and sends a chill down my spine,” said Liberal Wayne Easter — it was clear from the nature and tenor of their questions and statements that the data collected by long form census is, for them, simply a tool to leverage more money from taxpayers.
“(The long form census) responds to the needs of Canada’s various communities…it deals with such things as housing, education, and services for vulnerable or marginalized groups, which include women, the disabled, the visible and linguistic minority groups..” said NDP MP John Rafferty, who then quoted the president of the Atikokan Métis Council: “The loss of the credibility of the data that is derived from the long form sampling would be devastating to the Métis people…” Liberal MP Michael Savage read a letter from G-funded advocacy group National Council of Women of Canada: “NCWC is a staunch supporter of recognizing unpaid work in contributing to Canada’s vibrant economy. We are now writing to oppose the proposed changes to Canada’s census.” Liberal MP Anita Neville proclaimed “The mandatory long form census…provides information on unpaid work, women’s wages, the status of disabled persons…”
BQ MPs, for some reason, were especially interested in the funding leverage that the long-form census provided. Richard Nadeau asked “How are we to justify measures to help society’s poorest and our linguistic minorities when the data are incomplete and unreliable?” Robert Bouchard pled that the data is critical for decisions about “social housing”; Serge Cardin, who accused the Conservatives of wanting to “disengage from more humane and socially oriented policies,” quoted two professors, “experts on the census,” from the Université du Québec à Montréal:

Two or three years ago there was an uproar when a study on income trends showed that there was a growing gap between rich and poor. The right-wing media lashed out, accusing Statistics Canada of Marxism. There is tension between the government and Statistics Canada, which exposes a reality they would rather not see…

There you have it: the opposition’s outrage on the census issue is hysterical and oddly disproportionate because they all believe in the primacy of a bureaucratic ruling class who will “build” Canadian society from the top down through redistribution, and they need the right “data” to make their case. Nadeau: “These statistics, like those published by Statistics Canada and the Institut de la statistique du Québec, help the decision-maker, the elected representative, the democrat. The elected democrat wants to help the people, the citizens, and take an enlightened and scientific view of that people’s situation in all spheres of life and society and throughout the nations they represent…”
We’re talking off-the-charts condescension: “Political mathematics,” lectured Nadeau, “entails having all the—I would like my Conservative friends to listen carefully to the next word—scientific information, obtained by using a scientific method. The term scientific is very important. I know that some MPs believe that the world was created 5,000 years ago and that human beings lived alongside dinosaurs. That is not true. They should stop believing such things. They are not helping science and not helping the Quebec or Canadian public.”

In his book Intellectuals and Society, Thomas Sowell responds to the progressive argument that prisons are not an effective response to crime, because so many prisoners are rearrested after they are released:

By this kind of reasoning, food is ineffective as a response to hunger because it is only a matter of time after eating before you get hungry again.

Ezra Levant:

“If we shut down the oilsands, Americans are going to fill up their cars with gas from somewhere else.”

John Vidal, in The Guardian:

More oil is spilled from the (Niger) delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico… With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution…

Last week Århus-based Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten ran a series of articles dealing with immigration issues. One particular story in the Ghetto Land series focused on the experiences of a kind-hearted Danish woman who had been strongly committed to the notion of integration, and who put her money where her mouth is by creating a project designed to bring immigrants and native Danes together over dinner, but who over time began to experience, erm, life-altering difficulties in her area of Copenhagen, including chaos and unpleasantness at her 3-year old daughter’s kindergarten, and a certain level of menace in her neighbourhood – people standing in the middle of the road blocking her car and refusing to get out of the way, that sort of thing.
Recently, her 12-year old son was attacked for a third time:

He and a friend were on their way home from school and were walking up Nørrebrogade [major thoroughfare] when 12-14 immigrant boys began circling them. Benjamin had seen a couple of the boys previously at a Tae Kwon Do club. The group of immigrant boys managed to separate Benjamin and his friend so that each boy was surrounded by 6-7 immigrants. They started pushing the two Danish boys between them as if they were balls in a game. Slowly the boys were forced out onto the street. The traffic stopped and Benjamin made eye contact with some of the cyclists and drivers, silently pleading for help while being pushed around. No one came to his aid.

His friend was hit and kicked so severely that he ended up at the hospital emergency room. Benjamin escaped onto a bus, but his assailants followed. He had to jump off the bus and seek refuge in a shop before anyone helped him. (emph.mine)

Poor kid obviously needed more bystanders:

Socialists presented a series of proposals Friday to resolve the ghetto problems, including relocation of university students, entrepreneurs and public activities to the areas…

Tonight’s music en route to the Tips features Karl Richter and the Munich Opera Bach Orchestra performing Gloria in excelsis & Et in terra pax, from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
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