Today, readers are responding to Statistics Canada suspending its practice of obtaining personal credit records of Canadians, and its plans to delay obtaining the banking details of 500,000 Canadian households.
The Statistics Canada office in Ottawa is seen in this 2010 file photo.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
This is a disturbing article. They have already been collecting data from TransUnion for over a year? I’m all for StatsCan being able to collect accurate data, and generally view them as one of the more important government ministries. Accurate data collection is an important check/balance on government. It helps prevent ideologues, both right and left, from passing idiotic legislation. However, Mr. Arora seems woefully ignorant that “demanding” this type of very personal data would be/could be a serious issue with most Canadians. He’s done StatsCan a huge disservice. Was he really expecting to just collect all this data on the sly? I want to see what the Privacy Commissioner finds out. Does this go beyond StatsCan into our current government? - bdtaylor
People lambasted Stephen Harper’s government for curtailing the scope of Stats Canada, and at the time, I thought that surely it was reasonable for the government to collect rather more information than that government planned for them to do. After reading this, and recent articles on this topic, I’m appalled at the overt intrusion of the government into Canadian citizens' private information, and also appalled to discover that without informing anyone, they’ve been going ahead and collecting our credit information without our knowledge. Who authorized this? What’s next? Our medical records?
Some will say, “come on, there’s all kinds of oversight into your financial situation already.” Perhaps. But to have our government formally go ahead and do this without informing us? It sets a very bad precedent. I’m beginning to think Stephen Harper was right about this. - Gizella
Statistics Canada spokesperson Peter Frayne said. “We take the privacy and confidentiality of Canadians’ information very seriously.” Actually, they don't. they may take the confidentiality very seriously but they don't care a whit about Canadians’ privacy, as evidenced by their actions. - Candace248
I would have been more impressed had the program been cancelled because the Trudeau government was responsive to the concerns expressed by Canadians. But while the Trudeau government is quick to apologize for the mistakes of others, it never acknowledges its own mistakes. - Layla4
How about we fire a few of these people, who tried to fly this under the radar. So they get the message that Canadians don’t want this kind of invasion. It seems that if you are a government worker there are different standards of accountability for bad decisions. - MG59
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