North Vancouver's Conservative MP Andrew Saxton says the federal government's decision to make the long-form census voluntary rather than mandatory will actually make the results more accurate.

He made the remarks on the same day the head of Statistics Canada resigned in protest over the move.

"We're not talking about getting rid of the long-form census," said Saxton. "What we're talking about is changing it from mandatory to voluntary. Experience has shown that when someone is made to fill out a form they often don't take it seriously because they have to fill it out."

The short-form census, which will remain mandatory, asks only name, sex, age, marital status, common-law status, first language learned and whether or not you wish to release your information after 92 years for historical purposes.

The long-form, which was sent to one-fifth of all households in 2006, is much longer and includes detailed inquiries on ethnic origin, immigration status, health conditions, education, employment, income, transportation choices and type of housing for a total of 61 questions.

To make up for the increased number of unreturned census forms, Industry Canada plans on sending the new voluntary form to a third of all Canadian households.

"A lot of people take offence at telling the federal government how many bedrooms they have in their home," Saxton said. "It's none of their business. They took offence that it was mandatory and they didn't fill it out and they were threatened with prosecution. That's what the federal Liberals are advocating; that people be threatened with jail. We don't think that's the way to go.

"We intend to keep a long-form voluntary census which will in fact have a larger sample size so it should be more accurate. We want to make sure the information we're collecting is relevant because if they are being forced to do it, we have to look at a better way. We believe this is a better way of collecting information, and at the end of the day we should have more accurate information," Saxton said.

His comments came shortly after Munir Sheikh, Statistics Canada's chief statistician, abruptly resigned. In a brief statement posted on the agency's website, Munir said he was legally barred from divulging exactly what advice he had given Industry Minister Tony Clement.

However, he wrote, "this relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census. It cannot. Under the circumstances, I have tendered my resignation to the prime minister."

"I do sincerely hope that my successor's professionalism will help run this great organization while defending its reputation," wrote Sheikh, a career civil servant who holds a master's degree and a doctorate in economics.

Sheikh's departure follows protests from a long, eclectic list of groups concerned about the integrity of the national census. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the Canadian Medical Association, the Toronto Board of Trade, the United Way, the Canadian Labour Congress, the chief economist at Toronto Dominion Bank and many others signed a letter urging Clement to revisit the decision.

Richard White, director of community development for the City of North Vancouver, also has serious concerns about abandoning the mandatory long-form census.

"We use the data a ton," he said. "We use it a lot in the analytical work we do that justifies and supports changes to zoning or community development, social planning, multiculturalism, budgeting, a bunch of different things.

"The richness of the data will be reduced because it's a different kind of process that they go through. Right now it's random so you get a pretty good certainty. That's why the statisticians are all wound up: the quality of the data will be reduced because it's self-selecting. Policy wonky kind of people will be submitting stuff, but the broad cross-section of the public is hardly likely to have the same interest in the long-form census."

White said renters, new Canadians and those with language difficulties will be the least likely to voluntarily complete the census, making them largely invisible to policy planners.

"That's the worry. By self-selecting you get the people who are more inclined to be participatory and lose the ones that aren't and they are the ones you really want to enumerate. What happens with the results of the census is that it shapes the way the federal and provincial government funds things. They fund on a per-capita basis and you might lose some of the people that are most worthy of support."

The consequence of this, said White, will be a distorted picture of Canada's population.

"They can hardly say this is representative of the community when it's self-selecting. On a regional level, there will be areas with very low response, say the Downtown Eastside, versus some areas like White Rock where there's a high level of stable population and they'll be over-represented. I guess Statistics Canada will have to do some data manipulation because they can't say on a regional basis we look a lot like White Rock all of sudden. It doesn't make any sense."

On Monday, City of North Vancouver council passed a resolution calling on Ottawa to reverse the decision.

In a 6-1 vote, Coun. Rod Clark was the lone vote against the resolution.

"The federal government did the right thing in going against the long-form census and I think eventually they'll see the reasoning in not having a census at all," said Clark.

Coun. Guy Heywood disagreed and said, "It is just silly wedge politics being played by a right-wing government to frustrate most of public policy in the country. . . ."

balldritt@nsnews.com