The Canadian conservative government (2006-2015) tried that and it contributed significantly to their embarrassing defeat in 2015. They won a solid majority in

The Canadian conservative government (2006-2015) tried that and it contributed significantly to their embarrassing defeat in 2015. They won a solid majority in May 2011, then out of the blue in June 2011 they announced the upcoming census would get rid of the detailed long-form version which is the basis for how the government decides and justifies where and how resources are spent. This was not mentioned in the election campaign at all, was not on any mainstream person's mind, the census was not opposed by anyone other than random western fringe groups, so when the conservatives made a big push for it, people sensed that they wanted to get of data and reality that contradicted conservatives views and policies. This change was still a significant issue more than four years later in the 2015 election. The long-form census was re-instated the day after the Liberal government took power and people were genuinely happy to fill out their 2016 census. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_census#Voluntary_long-form_survey_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_census#Voluntary... I think we can all guess how this will turn out down south.