Earlier this year I wrote a piece asking the question if the Conservatives were trying to force an election sooner rather than later.  Now it appears that they are rattling their swords again, and this time it's in the face of real opposition this time around. 

The decision made by the Harper Government through Industry Minister Tony Clement to scrap the mandatory long form portion of the census for 2011 has not been received well.  Everyone from business groups, to the provinces, municipalities, and statisticians have called the move unacceptable.  The bottom line they say is that the information received from a voluntary long form would be useless because the data would be so skewed.

Tony Clement held firm, saying that Statistics Canada was behind the decision 100%, sticking to the tired lines of intrusive questions and a litany of nonexistent complaints as a defence of the decision.  However, when the head of Stats Can, Munir Sheikh, resigned in protest over the decision it belied Mr. Clements position as false. 

Fine.  Politicians lie to get what they want done from time to time, so do all of us.  The problem now is that the government hasn't backed off of its decision, even after the science disagreed with them, as well as the bureaucracy and business community.  Politicians from local councils up to the Federal level are questioning the reasoning behind the push to do away with the long form census.  Cities use those statistics to plan expenditures and improvements and if the information is made all but useless, our ability to make good choices with tax payer money is lost.  How will we know what programs are helping our communities and which ones are a waste?  We won't with any accuracy, unless of course that's the point.

The opposition has come out to engage the decision, but I can't help but think that the combative stance the Tories have chosen is for the benefit of a fall election.  We've been hearing rumblings for quite a while now about a slowdown in the housing market and today we've gotten word from the Bank of Canada that the economy is expected to slow over the next two years.  Not good news for Canadians used to a relatively good economic recovery compared to the rest of the world.  However, it would certainly be a good reason for the Conservatives to want to have a fall election and a new minority mandate for another four years, riding out public discontent.

Personally I wouldn't take the bait being laid out by the Conservatives unless the polls change drastically over this gaffe by the government.  A spring election could be much more advantageous for an opposition coalition government, especially when their huge deficits and a worsening economy filter into the public consciousness over the next six months.

Anyway, if the government doesn't back down, I'll be interested to see if the polls will register any movement at all.