Tom Flanagan, the University of Calgary political scientist who once served as Stephen Harper's chief of staff and who has a long history in the Reform, Canadian Alliance, and Conservative parties, tells Meagan Fitzpatrick of Postmedia News he is puzzled by the government's decision on the census: It's just never been an issue in the Conservative movement. It just literally comes out of nowhere as far as I can see...
Harper spokespeople argue that sending the voluntary census long form to a larger number of people will compensate for any loss of data quality due to the newly voluntary nature of the form. Milan Ilnyckyj explains the fallacy. One of the biggest challenges in statistics is collecting a representative sample: finding a subset of the population that will do a good job of approximating the whole group. When a dataset contains a lot of sampling bias and is not reflective of the general population, it is essentially worthless as a guide. That cannot be fixed by using a larger sample size, nor...
The libertarian devotion to individual freedom that led the Harper Government to kill Statistic Canada's mandatory long form census questionnaire apparently did not extend to the Chief Statistician of Canada's letter of resignation. Munir A. Sheikh posted a note about his resignation on the agency's website late Wednesday night. The Harper Libertarians redacted it Thursday morning, replacing it with an uninformative generic message. Here, for the record, thanks to Kady O'Malley, is the full text of the Chief Statistician's censored message to Canadians: July 21, 2010 OTTAWA -- There has been considerable discussion in the media regarding the 2011 Census of Population. There...
The only voice I've heard in support of the Harper government's census vandalism is that of the libertarian Fraser Institute, which believes data of the kind produced by the mandatory long form should be available only to those who can afford to pay to gather it. Coincidentally, German artist Fabian Brunsing has produced a whimsical video that hints at the dystopic world we might achieve if the Fraserites get their way (or Harper gets a majority): Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan...
The deniers have some explaining to do: The Weather Underground reports that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Climatic Data Center rates last month as the warmest June since record keeping began in 1880, while NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies calls it the third warmest (behind June 1998 and June 2009). Both NOAA and NASA rated the year-to-date period, January - June, as the warmest such period on record. Moneyquote: A withering heat wave of unprecedented intensity brought the hottest temperatures in recorded history to six nations in Asia and Africa, plus the Asian portion of Russia, in June 2010....
In an interview with CBC Radio's Jim Brown, Ivan Fellegi, who served as Canada's Chief Statistician from 1985 to 2008, set forth five ill-effects of the Harper Government's surprise decision to make a crucial part of the 2011 census voluntary. The results will be biased because aboriginals, new immigrants, the poor, those with low educational attainment, and the very well off are less likely to respond. This will deprive Canada of important information about social trends such as income polarization. It will eliminate our best source of information about aboriginal Canadians, immigrants, and minority language groups. Municipalities and provinces will lose...
A friend who became a citizen Friday after living in Canada for 30 years sends this email: Almost 24 hours as a Canadian, and this has what's been happening: Dreamed last night that cricket was being played with a puck, eh! Have a craving this morning for a Double, Double, eh! I keep slowing down for pedestrians, eh! My first practice swing for golf this morning was left-handed, eh! When I received my usual list of orders last night from the "trouble and strife," I actually thought about complying, eh! What's going on????...
Contrarian reader RM thinks our post crossed the line: [T]his commentary was in poor taste. Yes, this veteran has every right to comment, but I think it is more important to respect the views of the the family of the fallen soldier. Let us make our comments without seeming to criticize the wishes of the family. Thanks to the many readers who pointed out that our link to CBC-Cape Breton reporter Bobby Nock's interview was broken, and thanks to website wizard Mike Targett for fixing it while Contrarian was helplessly sans Internet over the far Northern Atlantic....
Pinto Pony Productions, a small Toronto video production house specializing in non-invasive filming techniques, took to the streets of Toronto this weekend and shot the best roundup of demonstrator-vs.-police violence I could find on YouTube. The protesters did not impress the filmmakers. The Harper Government made a serious miscalculation with its absurd expenditure on security for the G8/G20. Halifax did a G8 nine years ago for $27 million, and Pittsburg did a G20 last year for $95 million [see correction below]. Harper spent ten times that amount: $12 million an hour over the three days; three times what security for any international leaders'...
Jane Kansas takes time out from her walk to mount the simplest, most easily understood defence I've heard of a women's right to choose face coverings like the niqab and the burka. Money quote: At the beaches of Nice, Cannes and Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat most women were young and slim and topless. In all the cafes, women wore only tiny bikini bras and sarongs, or simply sat and scarfed down their Croque Madames and Ricards in their bikinis. It was what was done. I sure didn’t. I come from a place where women do not sit in restaurants in their bikinis. I would be...