By Michael Regenstreif
On September 22 last year, Linda Kislowicz, CEO of UIA Federations Canada, and Andrea Freedman, its national director of planning and development, came to Ottawa and presented the Ottawa-oriented findings of the UIA National Task Force on Jewish Demographics to a gathering of lay leaders and senior staff of Ottawa’s various Jewish agencies and organizations.
The task force based its findings on detailed analysis of Canadian census results – going back to the 1981 census – along with estimates of results, based on identified trends, that it expected to see in data from the censuses due in 2011 and 2021.
Major community organizations – be they Jewish, other faith groups or secular – as well as governments of all levels, school boards, universities, hospitals, social service agencies, transportation boards like OC Transpo, and so many other bodies, rely on census data in the formulation of the long-term plans they need to make in order to serve their communities and clientele. As Federation Chair Donna Dolansky explained in the Federation Report (Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, November 2, 2009), much of the long-term strategic planning by the Federation is based on this information.
As almost every organization in the country involved in long-term planning will tell you, it is vital that the data they work with be as accurate and reliable as possible.
The Canadian census has long had a reputation for the reliability of its data. However, thanks to a surprising order handed down this summer from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative cabinet, the reliability of the census records to be gathered in May 2011 may be in doubt.
Until now, 80 per cent of Canadian homes received the short-form census questionnaire with just a few basic questions that can be completed in about five minutes or so. The other 20 per cent of households received the long-form questionnaire, which takes about a half-hour to 45 minutes.
Filling out the census form – whether long or short – has always been mandatory, under penalty of law.
Now, all of a sudden, the Tories have decided to make the long-form census voluntary. According to Industry Minister Tony Clement, the mandatory long-form was scrapped because no one should have to face prison for not completing it.
Until the Harper Government took this action, there was no issue surrounding the long-form census. It was never an election issue, an anti-census mob had never gathered on Parliament Hill and, if it was ever even mentioned in Question Period, it didn’t make the news.
And no one has ever gone to jail for failing to fill out their long-form questionnaire.
Social scientists and statisticians have uniformly condemned the Government’s action and have raised serious doubts about the reliability of the data, if answering the long-form questions becomes optional. Munir Sheikh, now the former head of Statistics Canada, resigned in protest.
It makes no sense whatsoever to scrap the mandatory long-form. The Harper Government should act now to reverse the decision.
Rotem bill
There’s been much debate in the Jewish world about a bill, introduced in Israel’s Knesset by Israel Beiteinu MK David Rotem, which would change how conversion to Judaism is administered and recognized. The Israel Beiteinu party, led by Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, is part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
The issue has proven to be extremely divisive in Israel – Netanyahu himself has come out against the bill – and has sparked rare intervention from the established leadership of Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora. On July 20, Federation Chair Donna Dolansky and President and CEO Mitchell Bellman wrote to Netanyahu expressing the Federation’s concerns about the negative impact passage of the bill would have on Israel-Diaspora relations.
On July 22, a deal was brokered to delay further debate and votes on the bill for six months.
