Greetings All. As indicated yesterday I am reporting to you the results of our involvement in the roundtable discussions being held by the Access to Information Act Review Task Force. This Task Force, you will recall, is the body which Industry Minister Brian Tobin indicated was being charged with conducting the "further broad based discussions with all Canadians" relating to public access to Historic Census records. More on that below. It had been my thought, prior to the discussions being held, that I would have to be prepared to "do battle" in order to convince other participants of the importance of public access to these records. I was pleasantly surprized to find that this was not the case. Of the seventeen participants listed on the schedule there were three of us whose primary concern had to do with public access of Historic Census for reasons of Genealogy. Those were myself, Lyn Winters, and Dave MacKenzie from the Ontario Genealogical Society. I was particularly pleased to see as a participant in these discussions, and was honoured to meet Chad Gaffield who was one of the Expert Panel on Access to Historic Census Records, and is now President of the Canadian Historical Association. During our lunch break and later we were able to have an interesting discussion with Mr. Gaffield. The remaining participants were mainly chief librarians or archivists from prestigious institutions, mostly various Universities, or heads of companies that were users of Access to Information. In reading the impressive credentials of the other participants, I felt a little out of place. The Agenda of the discussions was to span a period of five hours, including a break for a working lunch. The issue of public access to Historic Census records was brought up almost immediately, and all told was discussed for almost a full hour. I was able to have my say on the issue and had prepared something to read but ended up not using it. As my forte is being able to put something down on paper, rather than speaking "off the cuff", it was fortunate that Lyn Winters and David MacKenzie were present to more eloquently verbalize our concerns. I fully intend to submit a written submission to the Task Force to support what was stated during this roundtable discussion. In the end run, the opinion of those present was unanimous in that public access to Historic Census should be allowed after 92 years, as permitted by the Privacy Act and its Regulations. While the overall discussions were interesting, and hopefully productive, perhaps the more interesting conversation was that held outside of the roundtable discussions. While they did not take part in the discussions themselves, there were three members of the Task Force present as observers. During the lunch break, and after the roundtable discussions finished, those of us whose primary interest was in regaining public access to Historic Census, were advised that perhaps the ATI Act Review Task Force was no the best route to take to achieve that goal. We were advised that there would be likely little said about this issue in the final Report of the Task Force. We were further advised that a review of the Privacy Act formed no part of the mandate of the Task Force. The members of the Task Force had not been advised that a review, with subsequent recommendations, relating to public access to Historic Census, was included in their mandate. This was reinforced by a conversation Lyn Winters had with Mary Anne Stevens of the Task Force on Wednesday the 28th of March. Ms. Stevens maintained that the reason the four of us had been invited to participate in the discussions was that the Task Force was interested in getting comments from a wide cross section of people using the Access Act. She said the group represented on Monday was a cross section of users including Librarians, Archivists, Lawyers, Genealogists, and Historians. Their purpose was to seek our views on the ATIA and its administration, NOT the specific issue of access to Historical Census records. On Monday evening, following the end of the roundtable discussions, I wrote an email to Industry Minister Brian Tobin detailing much of what I have stated above. I asked for a personal response to the concerns and questions raised. I do not expect I will hold my breath waiting for his response. I have in mind some other things that I will seek through Access to Information, including any or all documents support the claim of the Minister that "further broad-based discussion by all Canadians" would be included in the mandate of the ATI Act Review Task Force. It would appear that someone, somewhere, is not telling the whole truth. Happy Hunting. Gordon A. WATTS gordon_watts@telus.net Co-chair, Canada Census Committee Port Coquitlam, BC Keep up to date on Post 1901 Census information at http://globalgenealogy.com/Census en français http://globalgenealogy.com/Census/Index_f.htm