Your daily census reading

Andrew Coyne offers his theory as to how the Cons' choice to gut the census fits into their overall distaste for reality:

That trend was clear even before the census debacle. But this latest outbreak of Tory truculence has accelerated the decline. Others have tried, without success, to puzzle out what on Earth the Conservatives could have been thinking. Playing to the base? But what evidence is there that anyone, outside of a small hard core of libertarians, holds any hostility to the census? A plot to starve lefty activist groups of factual ammunition? But census data is presumably of equal use to all causes, left or right.

I think my colleague John Geddes came closest in his piece last week. It isn’t just that the Tories habitually ignore the expert consensus on a wide range of issues—crime, taxes, climate change—it’s that they want to be seen to be ignoring it. It’s the overt antagonism to experts, and by extension the educated classes, that marks the Tory style. In its own way, it’s a form of class war.

You can see it in the sneering references to Michael Ignatieff’s Harvard tenure, in the repeated denunciations of “elites” and “intellectuals.” In the partial dismantling of the census, we reach the final stage: not just hostile to experts, but to knowledge.

And the Star-Phoenix editorial board is the latest to remind the Cons of the only way out:

Had the government bothered to consult or heed the advice of anyone with a modicum of statistical or social sciences knowledge instead of pandering to the whims of the prime minister and some conservative hardliners, Mr. Clement wouldn't be doing these rationalizations and logical gyrations today.

Surely, even he can see that Canada's minority communities, the poor, immigrant groups and First Nations are deserving of the kind of deference he has accorded the francophones, who make a legitimate case as to why the legislation harms their rights.

Piecemeal backing down from an ill-conceived decision only prolongs the agony and embarrassment for the government. Better it should admit its mistake and rescind the change rather than let the prevaricating minister twist in the wind.

(h/t to Greg.)