Greetings All. FYI. On Friday 21 March 2003 the Post 1901 Census Project website, at the URL following my signature, achieved 300,000 hits since 27 April 1999. While many of those hits will be repeat visits from interested parties, this figure shows the interest in the Post 1901 Census issue. As I write this, the total number of hits, on the home page only, is 300,128. The MP and Senator Scoreboards have just been updated, and are current with the information that I have been provided by those who have sent me information. If you have correspondence from any MPs and Senators that would change the positions shown for them on the Scoreboards, please forward it to me. [Check Alberta's Senate Scoreboard -- Muriel] As reported the other day, the Senate Committee hearings regarding Bill S-13 have been delayed until 9 April. Anyone planning on making a submission to the Committee should do so now. Time is running out. Contact information is available on the Post 1901 Census Project website. Muriel and I continue to accept Census petitions and will do so until the issue is settled. Petitions have served their purpose and have accomplished what we sought with them. We feel efforts now should be directed first to submissions and letters to members of the Senate Committee deliberating Bill S-13, and secondly to contacting the remaining Senators who will shortly be debating S-13 during third reading in the Senate. Your submissions and letters should advise that the people of Canada seek unrestricted access to Historic Census records, without the various strings and conditions that certain clauses in Bill S-13 impose, and request amendments to made to reflect the will of the people. Some personal experiences that demonstrate the importance of Census records in your own research -- how it has contributed to the success of that research -- might touch a chord with some of them, and may demonstrate why we feel unrestricted access is so important to us. As I have mentioned several times before, please use your own words in writing the Senators and MPs. Also, be polite and respectful -- we seek the support of these people and to berate them for positions that might oppose your own will not accomplish that support and might very well turn them in the opposite direction. Until we see how Bill S-13 reads after Third Reading in the Senate it is difficult to know specifically what to write in letters to the Members of Parliament. We should think about that, however, and possibly prepare our letters to them in advance, being prepared to make adjustments when Third Reading is completed in the Senate. Once Third Reading is completed and the Bill is referred to the House of Commons we believe that it will proceed through the House quite quickly. Our thoughts are that the government wishes this issue settled before the summer recess in order to avoid ATI requests for the 1911 Census records, and subsequent complaints to the Information Commissioner should such requests be refused by Statistics Canada. [Also the actual date of release should be June, 2003!] Happy Hunting. Gordon A. Watts gordon_watts@telus.net Co-Chair, Canada Census Committee Port Coquitlam, BC http://globalgenealogy.com/Census en français http://globalgenealogy.com/Census/Index_f.htm --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.463 / Virus Database: 262 - Release Date: 3/17/03