"Special Interest Groups" Opposing Harper's Census Long-form Debacle is Especially Interesting

After Maxime Bernier referred to those opposing the scrapping of the census long-form as "special interest groups" who could pay for the census themselves (it will cost us millions to scrap it), the list of those "special interest groups" is growing.

Now several of them have written a letter to Tony Clement:

We are writing to request an opportunity to meet with you to discuss your Government’s recent decision to discontinue the Census long-form questionnaire and replace it with a new voluntary questionnaire, the National Household Survey. We are greatly concerned about this decision. Loss of the long-form Census information will cause considerable economic and social costs. The data are a key part of the decision-making processes of businesses, marketers, public service providers, community service providers, and charities. The effectiveness and responsiveness of public policy initiatives of federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments will be compromised. Canada is a vast country with considerable differentiation in the economic and social situations by geographical location. For many purposes the long-form Census questionnaire is the only valid source of data available of a local nature.

Some of those "special interest" include economist Don Drummond, Nik Nanos, Craig Alexander (President, Canadian Association for Business Economics and Chief Economist, TD Bank), Canadian Institute of Planners, Institute for Research on Public Policy, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, Canadian Labour Congress , Canada West Foundation, United Way, National Specialty Society for Community Medicine, Canadian Public Health Association, School of Public Policy and Governance - University of Toronto, Canadian Association of University Teachers, Canadian Council on Social Development, Canadian Economic Association, Toronto Board of Trade ...

Even the city of Edmonton is weighing in.

Bernier has suggested that the Liberals must answer as to why they want to keep it. I don't think the Liberals are Bernier's problem.

The Americans already tried this and it failed.

And the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors is wondering if Harper also plans to scrap mandatory jury duty.

This was a bad idea, but like all bad ideas that Stephen Harper has, he will not reverse them regardless of who criticizes him for them. No doubt this will be the same and he will again hope that it just goes away.

The problem is, his war against the Canadian people has a growing number of enemies, and he may wake up one day and wonder where all of his foot soldiers have gone.