At a time when we know we've got this sandwich generation, we have a crisis emerging in the country around caregiving. There's a generation that has young children and is very much concerned about taking care of their aging parents. We know this is a fundamental issue. It's only going to grow as our boomers age. To remove the questions related to unpaid work from the national household survey is really problematic. We need that data more than we've ever needed it. It's almost a backward slide.
On the issue of questions, one of the things that's really striking is we did a comparative analysis between the long form and the national household survey. You'd be surprised to note these are really the only questions that are absent. We know that because of the francophone injunction three additional questions were added to the short forms, so now there are eleven questions there. If you do a comparative analysis between the two, the surveys haven't changed.
Clearly the questions really weren't a problem for cabinet, because cabinet decides what the questions are, except for the unpaid work questions. To me, that's a fundamental issue and a fundamental question for Canadians and Canadian women.