Canadian bishops wade into census controversy

The federal government's plan to make the census long form optional is not being received well. Not only has the chief statistician resigned over the matter, not only is prevailing public sentiment on the decision negative, but now the Canadian bishops are wading into the dispute. Bishop Pierre Morissette, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, has sent a letter to Industry Minister Tony Clement, asking him to keep the current form because the information collected, for instance on religion, is important to Canada as a society and it's anonymous. (This seems like an opportune time to point out that B.C. is still not reporting information on abortion in this province...information that is similarly anonymous and important to us as a society.)