Stats Canada power grab in process!

Statistics Canada is attempting to forge for themselves the Ultimate Iron Rice Bowl.

Now, StatsCan is seizing its moment. It has developed a plan to amass more independence and authority than ever before, having presented to the Liberals a plan for changes to the law that would make all of its surveys, not just the long-form census, mandatory. It wants the power to be able to force companies to hand over private data, including Internet search records, and credit-card transaction records. Companies, and even other levels of government, would be compelled to hand over any information StatsCan deems important, with fines for any "unreasonable impositions" that "restrict the flow of information for statistical purposes."

In the discussion paper, which the agency shared with The Canadian Press, StatsCan seeks to free itself from government control over how it collects its data, with a whole new list of powers it wants the government to hand over to the chief statistician to free the agency from political influence. It even wants the right to have its own computer infrastructure, because being on the centralized system the rest of the federal bureaucracy uses gives government tech staff "an effective veto" on any StatsCan work, by not providing tech support for it. Statistics Canada would prefer not to answer to anyone, including the guys in IT.

Yep, they want the power to call you up and demand you tell them any goddamn thing they want to know, or you go to jail.

Not at all chilling, is it?

The Phantom