Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I would certainly consider it and I hope the next time around, we can work out an arrangement with Statistics Canada to do it. Having said that though, Statistics Canada has been pretty adamant that they want to collect the data in a consistent way right across the country. They would not want each jurisdiction doing it on its own. It is going to take a bit of persuasion to get them to get off their present system.

I suspect we are going to find that this last census, which was managed by a person from outside of the Territories, where Stats Canada set the salary level for people who did the surveys and it was very low. They had a lot of trouble collecting information. I was speaking to one of the people this morning who dropped into my office to talk to me about it. It was just full of problems when they did it.

Maybe there is some willingness to look at the North differently, particularly aboriginal communities, than they do in the rest of Canada. I would like to work with Statistics Canada to do that, not fight with them, if we can do it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Lee.

I think I should make it clearer as to what I meant. It is probably going to be difficult to try and convince them that we will do our own census and they should use our information. That is not what I meant. What I meant was we could have a community worker prior to census coming. Like an ad, posters, community meetings. Communities in the North are pretty small. Maybe band councils could get involved. Maybe during a drum-dance, somebody could explain census is coming and explain the importance of it.

I remember when census people were coming around my neighbourhood, it was inconvenient. They had to track me down. I had to be there and you had to fill out a really long form. They asked questions that I did not even want to answer.

If it is just another government form coming in the mail and you do not understand the relevance of it or why does it impact me, it is easy for people to throw it in the garbage.

I do not know exactly how it is done in the communities, if they go door to door. I am not saying that NWT people replace census people, but perhaps the NWT people could go with census people as a guide, as a friendly mediator, so they know they are doing it for us. The community people will feel easy with them. Or doing a campaign prior to it. For example, the GNWT census is coming. This is done by the federal government. This will determine how much money we will get for roads, hospitals or whatever. It is really important that everyone of you gets counted and do it in aboriginal languages. Surely this is a very important thing for our financial well-being. That is what I meant, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I think I am saying the same thing as Ms. Lee. I am not saying we will do our own and hand them the data, but we need to have Northerners working with Stats Canada. Stats Canada, from what I can gather, follow much the same system in small communities in the North as they do in small communities in the south. They knock on the door. If people answer, they will try to fill out the form with them. If they are not home, they hang it on a doorknob and ask that you send it in. That does not work in our communities. We need to convince them that we will work with them to get a way that is more effective that does not distort their statistics in the long run. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Bell.

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?

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, it is true that they have been doing census for years and have generally been following the same methods. There has always been an under count, and they do come back and they are coming back now and doing an assessment of the under coverage.

I would have to say that this last census, on the experience of the people who have been around a long time in this business, was particularly problematic. We were hearing issues last summer that we brought to Stats Canada's attention, where we knew they were missing whole areas or they were missing half a community because people were not home and so on. I do not think it is a new problem but it is more magnified than it has been in the past.

It could be, and I am from Saskatchewan, so I do not blame Saskatchewan people, but I understand the man in charge of it was from Saskatchewan, he had a budget to work with, he paid so much an hour to workers and they had to do so many homes. He had those problems to deal with.

I think we have to look at that and get some flexibility from Stats Canada the next time. It may take a little bit longer to get the information than it would in southern Alberta, but it has to be done with the same level of thoroughness.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I think the Minister is taking the right approach here in asking that our own Stats Bureau take a look at these things. I want to say I feel like we are desperate to see these numbers go up. I sense that in listening to our officials talk about this. I feel that myself, but I would just hope that we are not putting all our eggs into this basket and that we are ready to talk about what if; what if Stats Canada did a count that was only 2.5 or 3 percent out? I think we have to accept that may be a very real possibility. If it is, we are going to have to talk about what we need to do with bureau resources the next time around. I think it would be irresponsible not to plan for that kind of thing.

I do agree that if there are concerns, and it sounds like there are, about the methodology used and the way it was done, we need to address it and we need to look into it. I would hope that we are not counting on something like a 10 percent under coverage. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, we are going to work hard with Stats Canada to start with on this one. If we still feel that we are not getting the information that we feel is accurate, then I am prepared to propose back to my colleagues in Cabinet that we in fact go out and do some surveys ourselves in some communities, just to have the information ourselves, to assure ourselves that we are right. If this does not work, we will go out and get some of our own data.

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