OTTAWA — The Conservative government has found a census consensus with the new British government and some Republican activists in the United States.

Within a week of the Canadian cabinet announcing that it would eliminate the mandatory long-form census in favour of a voluntary survey next year, the new Conservative government in the United Kingdom is now poised to eliminate their census.

Some British politicians used the same words while they were in opposition as Industry Minister Tony Clement, saying the mandatory census was "intrusive" and coercive.

This weekend, the British government announced they would cut the census to save money, and will depend instead on the use of private data sources such as credit and mail records to put together population statistics.

Canada is not going quite as far, keeping intact its mandatory short-census form with its basic information on the number of people in a household, their genders and mother tongues.

In the United States, opposition to the census among libertarians in the Tea Party movement has been spurred by activists such as Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

They became so vocal before this year's census, that some high profile Republicans had to appeal to supporters to fill the papers out for fear underreporting would hurt the assessment of voting districts for Congress and state legislatures.

For Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government, it's one of the rare times cabinet has unabashedly tipped its hat to the libertarians that form part of its base of support. Harper himself hails from the libertarian side of the Conservative party tent.

"All that the census is, and I say this as someone who once worked for (Statistics) Canada, is an intrusion into the privacy of the individual," writer Hugh Macintyre posted last week on the Freedom is my Nationality and Western Standard blogs.

"So I applaud the government for at least taking this small step towards ensuring greater privacy."

The decision has garnered aggressive opposition from a wide cross-section of groups that use the data in decision making -- from municipalities, to academics and business organizations.

Some of those angry with the move will hold a major press conference on Tuesday, to underline that the voluntary long survey will not produce reliable results.

Still, there are some who have stood up to say they applaud the decision based on the surveys being an unjustified government intrusion into their personal lives.

"(Clement's) right. In the land of the free, having government ask myriad questions about personal matters doesn't fly," Calgary-based pundit Joan Crockatt wrote on Twitter.

Peter Coleman, president of the National Citizens Coalition, says the government has simply not made a good case for why the census is necessary.

"I'm not sure what the value is," said Coleman. "It's like one of those old things you've done forever and ever and you keep on doing, and somebody stops and says, "What are we getting out of this, how much is it costing us, and what are we getting in terms of value of this?"'

Other Canadian right-of-centre think tanks, including the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and Macdonald-Laurier Institute, declined to comment saying they had not yet studied the census issue.

Roger Gibbins, president of the Canada West Foundation, says he's perplexed by the government's decision. He says he has not seen or heard an identifiable, organized group in western Canada opposed to the mandatory census, and doesn't completely understand why the decision was made.

Clement has said no polling or consultation had been done on the issue, but that "every MP" had heard complaints about the long census.

"People complain about flying saucers landing in their backyards and wild raccoons and all sorts of things, so you have no idea if there's a groundswell, or the intensity or frequency (of the complaints)," said Gibbins.

Pollster Nik Nanos likened the census change to private member's bills that address niche, "nuisance" issues.

"This initiative will unlikely have a material impact on ballot support for any party. It's also unlikely to be of significant interest to Conservatives compared to other core Tory issues like taxes and the economy," Nanos said.

The cost of the change to the long census form could reach $30 million: $5 million to mail it to one-third instead of one-fifth of households, and a potential $25 million to encourage non-responders to fill it in.