"It was such a screw-up from the beginning," said Brian Horgan, who worked as a census enumerator before calling it quits last Friday. "It's so disorganized -- it's embarrassing, actually."
To date, more than 300,000 census forms remain outstanding in B.C. -- a figure significantly higher than the number not returned in 2001, said Jerry Page, western regional director for Statistics Canada, said B.C.'s return rate on this latest round of census forms was among the lowest in the country.
That year, he said, "B.C. led the nation in terms of mailed response."
Page said the government had banked on a figure of 400,000 households left unreturned 10 days after the May 16 deadline, out of a total of 1.7 million. Instead, they found themselves short more than 800,000 forms.
The exact reason for the low return rate isn't clear, he said. But, "if there was a cause or something out there that was driving this, I would say there was an apathy."
Since May, Page said, the government has spent millions of dollars encouraging residents to return their forms through splashy media advertising campaigns, and hiring hundreds of door-to-door census enumerators.
"People should know this is costing them, the taxpayers, a lot of money to follow up," he said.
Full article here
Rearguard writes: Apathy? We've been everything BUT apathetic! No mention of the well known census protest which started way back in 2003. Either these people are out of touch with realty, or the propaganda machine is gearing up into targeting us apathetic and costly bums with painful fines to get us filling out the forms.
Note: link
Full article here
Census Collection Called A 'screw-Up'
Posted on Monday, July 31 at 13:49 by rearguardContributed By
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If you do, better do so with a secure anonymous email address.
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“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous, the essential act of warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour”
If 400 000 more people returned their forms since then, I guess those protestors caved really fast.
The government says apathy, the enumerator says screw up, and protestors say it's because of them. When will someone actually provide evidence about why so many forms are unreturned?
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"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
(Albert Einstein)
Obviously coercion works really well, which is why it's used so often, but that does not make it right especially in a supposedly free and democratic country.
I "cave" with income taxes each year, but that's only because as an individual I cannot hope to win through a personal battle with such a huge monster. Only through a concerted and well organized effort can we push back the beast. The cards always seem to be stacked up against us, but perhaps the tide will turn one day, so we keep on fighting as best we can. Through education and awareness, perhaps the situation can be changed. I'm optimistic about this.
During the last census, we did not have anything organized at all, so I can see progress, thanks mostly to the internet, which fortunately for us small fry it brings us together unlike ever before, and potentially as more and more people come on-line, we may be able to form a large enough collaboration to effectively fight back in a big way.
Just wondering given your responses you seem to be involved with StatsCan at some level. Do you work for StatsCan or something?
3 minutes and 6 questions, maybe 7, I was done.
Nothing vital was asked, and as such I gave them what they wanted.
I assume I was asked the short form questions, a fact which suited me just fine.
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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush
This issue I've raised has nothing to do with what is being asked, the issue has to do with the government demanding that you bend to its will or else face punishment. To conduct a census, there's simply no valid reason for the government having to behave like tyrants, nor would it be legal if the Charter were adhered to.
But as always, "Might is right".
I lost count how many times I sent Cretien a pink slip. Harper better hurry up with some of those campaign promises, or I'll have a word with HR.
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden
2. But there's another issue: Canadians should realize that if Americans cannot count votes (as has been proven over and over), how would they be able to count census returns?
I've pretty well decided that if the nice lady comes back (and actually catches me home), I'll ask for a paper form and write "Boycott Lockheed Martin" in the name field.
If we do this another time, folks, we've got to be better organized and not leave the individual to twist in the wind.
Baaaaah! GST is 6% now! Double-plus GUUUDDDEEE! Baaaaah!
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“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous, the essential act of warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour”
The MSM would also loose significant advertising revenue from the deep pockets of the military establishment who own and control LM, furthermore whoever screwed up would be fired and blacklisted from ever again working for the MSM.
Some of us actually had the director of StatsCan phoning our homes and asking us to cease and decist. Of course, we didn't.
If we had any kind of a budget, we'd do our own TV ads telling the Canadian public the truth.
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden