Magic Statistics

An enumerator who worked on the 2006 Census says she was asked to fabricate names and demographic information because data collection had fallen so far behind.

Sharon Newton, an enumerator for Statistics Canada, told CBC News she was asked to make up names and birthdates in order to finish the census.

"At the end, they just said, 'We really don't care. As long as you can find out if there [are] three people that live in that house, put down Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck on it. We don't care about a name," Newton said.

Statistics Canada is responding to Newton's allegations by launching an investigation into the data. Anil Arora, director general of the census program branch at Statistics Canada, told CBC Radio on Thursday this was the first time he heard of anyone fabricating data.

"StatsCan takes the quality of the data, the integrity of the information we collect, and the security of the information we collect very, very seriously, and obviously, when such an allegation is made, it's important for us to get to the bottom of it," Arora said.

He wants to hear from any other enumerators who were told to fake information.

Anything is possible, I suppose, but this strikes me as very unlikely.  In my experience, what Mr Arora said about data collection is true: Statistics Canada takes data quality, reliability, and confidentiality extremely seriously.

Also, my understanding is that concocting data is an offence under the federal Statistics Act.  Any Statistics Canada supervisor who asks for fabrication of data is liable to prosecution.  So is any employee who provides such.

The CBC news story doesn’t say whether Ms Newton complied with the request to invent census data.

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Festering anger and unresolved disputes over France's role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide has led Rwanda to declare that it will complete its diplomatic break with France and join the Commonwealth.  President Paul Kagame (photo at right) is hopeful the Commonwealth will accept his country’s application for membership.  He has been granted observer status at the next Commonwealth summit, to be held in November in Uganda.

Mr Kagame, a lanky former guerrilla fighter with an austere manner, rarely shows any emotion. But the softly-spoken 50-year-old struggles to contain his anger when discussing France in Africa. “They are the ones who armed and trained the militias . . . the evidence is everywhere. They continued to do so even after the genocide started,” he said.

The bitter relations between the two countries came to a head in November when a French judge accused Mr Kagame and several of his top aides of shooting down the aircraft carrying Juvenal Habyarimana, the former President — the incident that triggered the 100-day massacre of mainly Rwandan Tutsis and of moderate Hutus opposed to his regime.

Rwanda retaliated by severing diplomatic relations with Paris. Thousands of infuriated Rwandans took to the street in antiFrench protests.

“They are hyping up the downing of the plane,” Mr Kagame said. “They are trying to present it as the event which started the genocide and divert attention from their prior support of the genocidal regime.

“The preparation for genocide was going on [before the plane came down] and was known by the international community, and particularly the French. They are trying to shift attention from that,” he declared.

Mr Kagame denies any involvement in shooting down the plane.

The French supported the murderous Mr Habyarimana because he backed the use of the French language in Rwanda.

“The French were obsessed by language,” he [Mr Kagame] said. “I remember when I was invited to Paris in 1992 as part of a peace initiative they were angry I could not talk French.

“That night security agents burst into my hotel room and ‘detained me’, even though I was a guest invited by them.”

Not only was a supporter of France deposed in Rwanda, the aftermath of the genocide destabilised Congo to such an extent that another French ally, President Mobutu, was overthrown in favour of Laurent Kabila, an English-speaking exile from Tanzania.

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In January 1999 Graham Staines, an Australian Christian missionary to India, and two of his boys, aged seven and nine, were sleeping in their car when it was set upon and torched by a mob of Hindu nationalists. The mob prevented Mr Staines and his children from escaping and they burned to death.

Dara Singh, the man convicted of leading the attack, has asked India’s Supreme Court to release him on bail after less than four years in prison, claiming he is the sole support for his family and he has to look after his elderly mother.

Singh, whose real name is Rabindra Kumal Pal, was condemned to death on 22 September 2003 by the provincial Court of Orissa. The man was convicted for leading an attack in Keonjhar district that caused the death of Australian missionary as he slept in a car with his seven-and nine-year-old children on January 23, 1999. All three were burnt alive. The court also sentenced 12 men deemed his accomplices.

The eastern state's high court commuted Singh’s sentence on May 19, 2005, to life in prison and freed 11 of the other accused.

Graham Staines ministered among Indian lepers for 34 years.  He is survived by his wife Gladys and daughter Esther.  In an interview a few months ago, Gladys Staines reiterated her forgiveness of her husband’s killer.

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