An incomplete gift

I'll second Greg's take that Stephen Taylor's proud declaration that the purpose of gutting the census is to permanently undermine any future government program development should be considered a gift for the cause of removing the Cons from power.

But there's an important flip side to that fact: there probably won't be a better opportunity to focus Canada's political debate on the worst of the Cons' long-term intentions. And if the opposition parties don't make the black mark stick on the Cons' permanent record (which really shouldn't be that difficult, especially to the extent the theory directly conflicts with Jason Kenney's efforts to win the support of exactly the groups mocked by Taylor), then there's a real risk that the perception that we're headed inexorably toward a deliberately failing state will become the default setting in Canadian politics for a long time to come.