Who's going to fill out their census online?

This is the first time this option is available right?

has the contract on this, I want my sensus done manually, by Canadian workers so am taking the sage advice given here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=190x14344

Does it even make a difference practically or privacy-wise if the census is done online, or if it's a paper version filled out neatly so the Lockheed Martin optical scanners can read it, or if it's done so in a way as to make the optical scanners reject it so that a staffer has to enter the data manually? Wouldn't that staffer just be entering the data into the same big database, and don't all the manually entered data end up at Lockheed Martin for tabulation anyway?

Is there in fact ANY chance to stay out of the clutches of the military-industrial complex?

optical scanners reduce the costs of tabulating so if those sending them in make it so the scanners can't read them and they must be tabulated by hand two things may happen:

1. They will have to hire Canadians to tabulate the responses
and
2. Their costs will be higher than they put in their successful bid

My top priority, though, is to protest the outsourcing of our private info to an American defense corporation any and all ways I can. I have already had back and forth correspondence with Statistics Canada and I intent to fill out the comment section of my form strongly protesting again.

Edited to add: I support collecting the data as is done through the Census, I simply insist it is prepared and tabulated by our own government employing Canadians instead of an offshoot of an American defense corporation.

giving temporary work to some seasonal StatsCan employees. The websites www.countmeout.ca and www.vivelecanada.ca seem to imply that if we take a sort of passive-resistance attitude towards filling out the census -- by not doing it online or by using methods that will foil the optical scanners -- then our sensititve information will somehow be safe and not end up in the hands of a foreign corporation. But unless ALL the information is put in the same place, it's statistically quite worthless.

So will writing our names upside down and answering the yes/no questions without colouring in the little circles help us safeguard our privacy, or is it now a lost cause and we're just being disruptive? I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that; I enjoy throwing spanners into the works just for the fun of it. But if we're not going to be able to keep our data safe -- which is what I'm really worried about -- well, what's the point?

Not filling out the census at all would seem to be only way to keep Canadian data safe from Lockheed Martin, but that's not an option.

this and it should be under the auspices solely of Stats Canada. Slowing down the process is a part of the protest but if that is all one does then I would agree, why bother.

Most Canadians don't even know Lockheed Martin is involved at all, sadly.

As far as personal information goes, some devious hacker may now know my address, that I'm married, that there are two people living at this address, and that I don't have a farm.

Thanks for the reminder.

I'll protest whether it does any good or not at least I tried.

They're still looking for census enumerators for targeted areas in my neighbourhood; apparently they're having the devil of a time keeping holding onto reliable employees. The woman who was my immediate superior in the recent federal election, and who works across the hall from the guy who called me, apparently recommended me highly. So I'll be going for an interview probably on Thursday.

If I get the job, tell you what, I'll keep my eye out for any signs of foreign involvement, OK?

BTW, when the guy called, I asked him about the Lockheed Martin thing, and he said he'd brought that up himself as an issue when it was decided by the (Liberal!) government in 2002, but he's satisfied that there won't be a problem, as none of the info actually is going to LM. StatsCan is just using LM's machinery, and all the data will be tabulated in
Canada by Canadians. As the guy said, there'll be no chance of George Bush getting Maher Arar's census info...

Can I do it at nights? Week-ends? I had one show up at my door. Gave me the forms and than asked a few simple questions. I answered the questions and threw the forms away...

call "efficiency bonuses". The more you get filled out, the more you get paid. As to working nights, and weekends, in fact, it's MOSTLY evenings and weekends. I think it's because that's when people are home.

Go to www.census2006.ca and just follow things from there. There's an approximate 24-hour rollover between your call and their callback.

(Using "region" for lack of a better term.)

I seem to recall hearing that each submitted form represents several thousand dollars allocated for that person's region.