If facts are diamonds, the market is flooded with cubic zirconia. The U.S. president recently rejected photographic evidence of his inauguration crowd; essentially asking his populace: Who you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
Given the ascendancy of alternate political reality, we’re particularly grateful to see the first population counts from Canada’s 2016 census being released.
The numbers will give us a starting place for constructive debate. Do we need a new school in Lower Lonsdale? Should we preserve the District of North Vancouver’s light industrial lands?
For years, development run amok has been seen as the cause of our daily gridlock. Wednesday’s population figures should settle that debate one way or another. And if the North Shore is contracting, we hope our council representatives will revise their opinions accordingly. As writer Harlan Ellison likes to point out, we are not entitled to our opinions, we’re entitled to our informed opinions.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper famously dumped the long-form census, citing privacy concerns while favouring increased government surveillance of Canadians.
With approximately 98 per cent of Canadians filling out the census, we’d suggest most of us didn’t share Harper’s aversion to the free flow of vital information. And given that the 2011 National
Household Survey received only a 69 per cent response, all levels of government will now have measurably superior information.
We salute our current prime minister, Justin Trudeau, for bringing back the long-form census. Now, if we could just add one census question about electoral reform.
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