Continued evidence that nobody cares

Yesterday's headlines saw stories about Con supporters and cabinet ministers alike defending the long form census. But the criticisms of the Cons' choice to gut it haven't stopped there, as the Star-Phoenix' editorial board has chimed in on the latest set of spin:

(T)he majority of Canadians are offside with the government's move to make the census voluntary. And it's a chasm that only can widen with nearly every utterance by Conservative politicians, whose justifications for the widely unpopular decision increasingly sound as if they are being made up on the fly.

Their performance would be laughably pathetic, if the consequences of the ill-advised decision didn't run counter to the long-term interests of Canadians by sabotaging a detailed data source that's import to governments, businesses, academia, scientists and a plethora of social groups.
...
With so many Canadians finding the multi-page income tax forms a chore to complete, not to mention the coercive and mandatory nature of filing returns, might one complaint from one Canadian be all it takes for Mr. Clement and his cabinet cronies to make income taxes voluntary?

That notion makes about as much sense as what's been spewing from the lips of Conservative MPs on the topic of the long form. Rather than admit it was a mistake to ignore sound advice and pander to a minuscule fraction of party supporters, they've made the census fuss into an embarrassing long-running spectacle.