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This afternoon, Canada’s Chief Statistician Emeritus, Dr. Ivan P. Fellegi, received the Confederation Centre of the Arts’ Symons Medal and gave the 9th national Symons Lecture on the State of Canadian Confederation.
For those who had been following the Federal Government’s decision from 2010 to change the mandatory long form census to a voluntary survey, you would have been particularly interested in Dr. Fellegi’s talk this afternoon. He prefaced his lecture by sharing some history with regards to the development of the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.
At the end of the eighties the countries of Central Europe began to change from centrally planned economies to market-oriented democracies. A few years later the Soviet Union was dissolved. Among the many changes that these developments generated was the need for complete transformation of the national statistical systems. Part of this transformation process was about redefining the role of official statistics, as well making it clear to governments and other users of statistics that a good system of official statistics must meet certain general criteria. In order to get this message across, and to assist heads of national statistical offices to defend the position of their institutes, the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics were developed.- Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics website.
Fellegi then set the tone for his lecture…. Canada led the world in the development of these principles. Little did we know we would be where we are with regards to respecting those principles, re: the 2010 decision.
When asked after his lecture whether or not he knew why the Federal Government made this decision, he had no clear answer and did not speculate…. as easy as that would have been.
He did not hold back and was very persuasive with his assertion that political interference had been committed by the current Federal Government. He wondered why the Minister responsible did not adhere to the Principles, or why he did not appear to even know the Principles existed. He also talked about trust, something he feels is the key to his profession. He believes the current methodology in collecting statistics in Canada does not deserve the trust of Canadians.
I found this in a Toronto Star article where Fellegi was interviewed about his job in 2002:
Unbeknownst to most Canadians, (Stats Can) is considered the world’s best statistics agency, because of the quantity, quality and credibility of its work, which is free of political interference.
He ain’t singing that song anymore.
