Greetings All. I have just returned home from Calgary where I spent the Holiday season with my son and two grand-daughters. While in Calgary I met a number of times with Doug Joudrey and had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Robert Westbury and Lois Sparling, both members of the AFHS and both active in our campaign to obtain public access to Historic Census. We had a good discussion regarding what we could now do, considering that Industry Minister Brian Tobin's response to the Report of the Expert Panel was to call for "further study". It is plain that Mr. Tobin has no intention of following through on the recommendations of the Expert Panel. For my own part, I will immediately be submitting three more Access to Information Requests. The first two will be to Statistics Canada. One will be seeking to obtain any and all documented evidence that proves the existence of the "promise" of never ending confidentiality of Census that StatCan claims was made to the people of Canada by the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1906. The "explicit guarantee of indefinite confidentiality" and "the legal promise Parliament made to Canadians" quoted by StatCan and the Privacy Commissioner will be included in this request. I do not expect the government to be able to produce this documented evidence. The second request will be for the 1906 census enumeration records for the Kindersley and Fairmont districts of Saskatchewan where I have family interests. This request will be made on the grounds that there is no legal restriction to public access of these records. I expect that this request will likely be refused outright. The third ATI request will be to the office of Sheila Copps seeking a Report on the National Archives and National Library commissioned by Ms. Copps in 1999. It was by John English, historian and professor at the University of Waterloo. Like the Report of the Expert Panel, it is reported to have recommended public access of Historic Census Records. While the first two requests are expected to be refused, or found unable to be answered, the responses to those requests will be valuable in an upcoming event. That event will be an action to the Supreme Court of Canada for immediate release to the National Archives of the Census enumeration records for the 1906 Census of the Western Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. To that goal Lois Sparling is seeking someone willing to be the plaintiff in such an action. The individual selected would preferably be someone having a demonstrable need for access to the 1906 Census, and should live in a town or city that has a regional office of the Supreme Court of Canada - preferably in Saskatchewan. If you would consider being a part of such an action please contact Lois at sparlinl@home.com . We will be seeking also a lawyer living in the same area of the selected plaintiff who would be willing to participate in this effort, preferably on a "pro bono" basis. Bob Westbury will be contacting as many Genealogical and Historical Societies as he can get email or snail mail address for to elicit their co-operation in joint efforts to support projects such as that above. Public access to Historic Census records has been subject of discussion for at least the past 30 years. Enough is enough. It is time now to make it clear to Mr. Tobin that we want access to the 1906 Census NOW, and continuing access to all subsequent Census 92 years after collection as allowed by Regulations attached to the Privacy Act. Happy Hunting. Gordon A. WATTS gordon_watts@telus.net Canada Census Committee Port Coquitlam, BC Keep up to date on Post 1901 Census information at http://www.globalgenealogy.com/census and http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Farm/7843/poll.html Download and circulate Post 1901 Census Petitions now from http://www.globalgenealogy.com/census/petition.htm This message has been sent to the Canada-Census-Campaign-L, Can-British-Columbia-L, Census-Chat-L, Colchester, Lunen-Links-L, Nova-Scotia-L, Ontario-L, PictouRoots, Roots-L, Watts-L, and Wiltshire-EMI-L mail lists. Permission to forward without notification is granted.