(Canadian) Census at risk if U.S. firm in on it, critics say

[Bragi]

Nationalists condemn Statscan contract with company to work on survey test run


By JILL MAHONEY
UPDATED AT 1:46 PM EDT Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2003

The next Canadian census will be in jeopardy if a U.S. defence company is involved with the survey, nationalist Mel Hurtig warned yesterday.

Critics are mobilizing opposition to Statistics Canada's contract with the Canadian subsidiary of aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp. to do a census test run -- and possibly play a role in the 2006 census itself.

"I think the threat of a national boycott may influence the government to change their mind, and people are very serious about a boycott," Mr. Hurtig said in an interview.

<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20031014/UCENSN/TPNational/TopStories>

(Even worse than a boycott, and people being charged for refusing to respond, is if they were so upset that they mistakenly added a person or two to their hosuehold, and undercounted their bedrooms by a few. The census data would then be irreparably corrupted. Sure hope that doesn't happen...)

[HEyHEY]

1. Yeah let's give our census info to another country

DUH

[Maple]

2. This is a majorly dumb

move!

[TrogL]

3. wonder how much NAFTA had to do with this

[Bragi]

7. NAFTA had EVERYTHING to do with it

[shirlden]

4. OMG !!!

Do we have to corrupt everyone and every country on earth? I would no more trust those war mongering, evil,greedy, corporate nincompoops than I would trust the devil himself. They can take that info and use it in a thousand ways to benefit themselves. They would have a mapped demographic of Canada worth billions.

Don't let them do this to you, Canadians. Tell them to go to hell.

:argh:

[Spazito]

5. This is the e-mail I fired off to Alan Rock

Dear Mr. Rock,

I am utterly outraged at the choice of Lockheed Martin as the company that will be doing the 2006 Canadian census. To put such confidential, private information about each and every Canadian in the hands of a FOREIGN defence contractor is beyond disgusting! I will do everything in my power to stop this. How dare you have so little consideration for Canadians' privacy. Why was this contract not given to a Canadian company? To say simply that it was the lowest bidder is not acceptable!

I strongly urge you to reconsider this appallingly bad decision immediately.

Sincerely,

[Bragi]

6. Here's a website with a form to sent to Rock

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/