http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/07/22/statscan-census-tories-.html

If someone can please explain to me how a voluntary survey can provide data as accurate as a mandatory one I'd love to hear it. (For that matter, how can a voluntary survey provide accurate data at all?)

Simple solution, first year of the next census put "do you support the long form census" as one of the question on said census. BAM! 100% approval.

My question is what was the consequence of not filling out the manditory survey? How "manditory" was it?

That being said, I think this decisions is bad. When the head guy at statistics canada is willing to quit because of it, that indicates there are problems with the plan.

Mandatory = jail time (in theory).

And it's ideological anyway... for another example, crime rates are dropping, so naturally criminal penalties must be increased and more prisons built.

That reminds me of this.
http://xkcd.com/552/

Hahaha, as an econ major, .

My other thought is that it seems weird to me that Statistics Canada is under the portfolio of the industry minister. Not that I really know of a better portfolio to put it under, but isn't there like a miinister of science and research?

Statistics Sweden is put under the ministry of finance. As very much of the statistics is about National Accounts in one way or the other (mostly indirectly, but any way), it seems quite reasonable too me.