StatsCan planning to ask gender questions in 'pilot' census � and answering is mandatory

"PluggyRug" said
I'll identify as a CF18 thoroughly worn out and unable to engage.

Next year, Statistics Canada is going to be asking 250,000 Canadian households some personal questions it has never asked before � and answering them honestly is mandatory.

Agency spokesperson Peter Frayne declined to provide the new questions to CBC News, calling them a "work-in-progress."

But Arora's notice to Bains indicates they deal with sex and gender, among other topics.

"Many of the content changes proposed for 2021 affect smaller population groups (transgender, non-binary, same-sex couples; language rights-holders; ethnic groups; residents with work or student visas; Indigenous populations, etc.)," he wrote.

Frayne said the new questions will also deal with veterans, general health status, religion, skills related to digital technology, and small changes will be made to questions asked in previous census years.

The agency recently stoked controversy when news emerged that it planned to collect banking and credit information from banks on some 500,000 Canadians � part of another pilot project slated for 2019.

Arora later suspended the project while Canada's privacy commissioner investigated, a process that office says will take months. The stalled financial data pilot was not a direct survey of Canadians, unlike a census.

On Jan. 25, 2018, the agency published its standards on definitions and usage for sex and gender, which will inform its coming census questions.


Industry Minister Navdeep Bains, the minister responsible for Statistics Canada, received the mandatory notice from Arora in September. The pilot census will contain many new personal questions. (Melanie Ferrier/CBC)
"Gender refers to the gender that a person internally feels � and/or the gender a person publicly expresses.

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper in 2010 cancelled Statistics Canada's long-form census, scheduled for 2011, for which some households were required to provide more detailed information than in the standard census questionnaire.


Then-industry minister Tony Clement, in the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, cancelled the long-form census for 2011. (Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
"We do not believe it is appropriate to compel Canadians to divulge extensive private and personal information," Tony Clement, then-industry minister, said at the time in justifying the move.

"We do not believe Canadians should be forced under threat of fines, jail, or both to divulge the answers to questions such as these: How many sick days did you take last year? Were you paid for those? What were your total payments for your primary dwelling last year? Do you have any broken floor tiles in need of repair in your bathroom?"

The Liberal government reversed the decision and reinstated the long-form census for 2016.

"herbie" said

- It's a short form, you give out more fucking personal information returning a pair of socks