Thank you. I guess I have a couple of concerns here. As Ms. Lee has pointed out, it is unlikely that Stats Canada is interested in us counting our own heads. I think they need to be independent. They need to be seen as objective. I am sure that every jurisdiction in the country would like to do its own count.
I know from talking to people on the street, and I feel the same way, you almost want to will the population to go up. You want something to cheer for. You certainly do not want to hear that the population is dipping because it is going to really impact the kinds of programs and services you can deliver.
It is one thing to say that Stats Canada does not have an accurate method of counting the population in the Northwest Territories or in the North because of the specific challenges of small communities. Unless I were convinced that they somehow changed their methodology this last time around, I would suspect they have been doing it in the same manner for years and years and years. Therefore, there have always been the problems that they have now.
I read in the news that the last time they did it, they were 2 percent or some 2.5 percent out. Even if you look at this data again, their recent calculations and assume they are 2 or 5 percent out, there is still not the kind of growth that we have anticipated or that we feel is happening in some of the larger communities that I am familiar with.
I guess my questions would be around whether or not we have some indication that Stats Canada has changed their methodology. If they are slightly wrong this time, I would assume they have always been slightly wrong in the same manner, unless I learned that they have somehow changed their methodology. Can the Minister comment on that?