On cautionary tales

With the Cons pushing for a free trade agreement with Europe, one has to figure they'll be concerned with how Canada is perceived in that part of the world. So let's see what the European Union has to say about the Cons' political interference in the census:

In the newly released report, the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board decries the government's decision to replace the mandatory long-form census with a voluntary survey, citing Canada as a cautionary tale of statistical agencies losing their traditional autonomy.

"We were utterly astonished, given our view of Canadian statistics. We didn't expect it to happen in Canada, quite frankly," said Johnny Akerholm, chair of ESGAB. "We've all been full of admiration of everything that is going on in the statistical field in Canada. Canada has frequently been seen as the benchmark, the best performer."

ESGAB was established by the European Parliament in 2008 to boost the professional independence, integrity and accountability of European statistical agencies. One of the tenets of the organization's code of practice is that the autonomy of statistical agencies should be guaranteed by legislation, and the annual report cites Canada as a country where the statistical agency had a tradition of independence, until the government exercised "dormant legal powers" in making changes to the census.