Greetings All. My apologies in advance for the length of this posting. I copy below, for your information, my verbal presentation of 19 September to the Senate Committee that is reviewing Senator Milne's Bill S-12. There was more to it, not included in this post, in responding to questions. I am working on adding the entire proceedings to the Post 1901 Census Project website, located at the URL following my signature. I will post to the lists when that has been completed. Happy Hunting. Gordon A. Watts gordon_watts@telus.net Co-Chair, Canada Census Committee Port Coquitlam, BC http://globalgenealogy.com/Census en francais http://globalgenealogy.com/Census/Index_f.htm Permission to forward without notice is granted. ================================ Gordon Watts: Honourable senators, I am one of the common people, and as such I am sure you will forgive me for being a little nervous here today. It is my pleasure to come before you in support of Bill S-12, an Act to amend the Statistics Act and the National Archives of Canada Act. The first decade of the 20th century saw the greatest influx of immigrants in the history of Canada. From 1900 to 1910, 1,819,930 immigrants from 49 different ethnic origins came to Canada. From 1911 to 1920 a further 1,573,432 came. Another 498,752 came between 1921 to 1925. Without access to historical census records, descendents of many of these immigrants will never know where their ancestors originated. It has been estimated that 7.5 million people in Canada, to one degree or another, have an interest in genealogy and family history. I speak on behalf of those people. Let me make it clear at the outset, genealogists and historians do not seek to obtain something new. What we seek is something 'old'. 'Old' both in respect of the information involved and in the fact that it is something that we have had in the past. We seek something that has been taken away from us because of misinterpreted legislation, and the fact that a few paranoid government bureaucrats feel that someone, at some time, might decide to look at records that may contain information about their ancestors. Unfortunately, those bureaucrats have control over the records we seek. 235 years of census records, all that have survived, from the first census of New France conducted in 1666 by Jean Talon, up to and including the 1901 census of Canada reside in and are under control of the national Archives. As such, they are available to any person or body for purposes of research. Copies of these records are available for purchase by libraries, genealogical and historical societies, and individuals. We suggest that access to 235 years of records constitutes a substantial precedent. We see no reason that access to subsequent censuses should now be withheld. Obviously, Statistics Canada has a different view. They claim that as far back as 1905, the people of Canada were given promises and guarantees of confidentiality that a census would last forever. They have been unable to substantiate these claims. Access to Information Requests for documented evidence of the existence of such promises and guarantees were submitted. Statistics Canada has been unable to produce any such evidence. Under our system of democracy, change in legislation takes place because of representations made to the government by the people. This is done through representatives elected by the people. It is the reason we are here today. During the 36th Parliament of Canada, representation made by the people resulted in the appointment of the Expert Panel on Access to Historical Census Records. An educated guess regarding the number of signatures on letters, e-mails, submissions to the expert panel, and petitions seeking to regain public access to historical census records would be in excess of 16,000. During the current Parliament, in excess of 22,000 signatures have been collected on petitions alone to the House of Commons and to the Senate. These figures are added to daily. There has been no corresponding representation to the government by people opposing access. Of the reported 95 submissions sent to the expert panel, only two opposed access to these records. One simply objected to the concept of breaking the promise he believed had been made. The other was a submission by the National Statistics Council, complete with a list of council members. Prominently displayed below the name of the chairperson of the council is the name of ex-officio member Dr.Ivan P. Fellegi, Chief Statistician of Canada. It is a foregone conclusion that any organization associated with Dr.Fellegi would oppose access. Dr. Fellegi and StatsCan would have you believe that knowledge and information provided in a census released 92 years in the future would cause respondents to be reluctant to answer questions or to answer them truthfully. by Environics Research Group that were conducted by StatsCan on behalf of the expert panel did not bear this out. Responses to the question in these surveys remained positive, even after having it unduly stressed that promises of never-ending confidentiality had been made. Reading these surveys, it is obvious that StatsCan manipulated the questions and information provided in a blatant effort to obtain a negative response. It did not work. Bill S-12 has been very well thought out. It will satisfy the concerns of those that seek public access to historic census. It should also satisfy those people who have concerns regarding confidentiality of personal information given in response to census. The delay of 92 years before release to the public provides a reasonable balance between privacy concerns and the need of genealogists and historians for information that no source other than census can provide. This delay is consistent with the provisions of regulation 6(d) of the Privacy Act of Canada. The position of total closure of these records as espoused by Statistics Canada and the Privacy Commissioner provides no balance whatsoever. The people of Canada have spoken. They wish to regain the public access to post-1901 census records on the same basis as those records up to and including 1901 have been, and continue to be, accessible. There should be no discrimination of records up to and including 1901 and those that follow. We call upon the committee to support Bill S-12 without modification. We further call upon the government to accept Bill S-12 as a government bill. That concludes what I had intended as my original verbal submission. I have a couple of comments that I would like to make. I found very interesting the reference by Mr. Sheridan to town hall meetings, which are something that is totally new. On December15, 2000, Industry Minister Tobin announced that further broad-based discussions with all Canadians would take place in conjunction with the ongoing reviews of the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act. Mr. Gaffield and I were told face-to-face, on March 26, by members of the Access to Information Act Review Task Force, not to expect much to be said [about Census] in their final report, because it was not part of their mandate. They were never told that a review of Census should be something they should consider or make recommendations regarding. I have tried numerous times to receive clarification from both Minister Tobin and Justice Minister McLellan, on just what, when, where and by whom these discussions would take place. We have not received a response from either of them, and we have had no acknowledgement of our correspondence with them. We have put in Access to Information requests to both ministers for this information. Statistics Canada has stated that they needed a further delay of 30 to 60 days in order to comply with my request. The day before coming out here, I received a letter from the Minister of Justice's ATI officer stating that they needed a further 130 days. In my view, this is just another example of their great reluctance to have anything to do with our concerns regarding this census issue.