Following is an e-mail i received this morning from Scott Brison via his constituency assistant. Typical political non-commital answer. Dear Ms. Lane, Thank you for your e-mail concerning the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) and individual records from the 1911 Census. In order to address longstanding limitations within Canada's health surveillance system, the federal government has given Statistics Canada a mandate to develop a direct measure health survey. As such, Statistics Canada is developing the CHMS: a voluntary survey based on direct measure of 5,000 to 10,000 people in a nationally representative sample. For this survey, 'direct measures' could include both blood and urine samples as well as height and weight and fitness. Collecting information from a nationally representative sample in order to extrapolate trends and distributional patterns of selected diseases and health risk factors falls within the expertise of Statistics Canada. The CHMS will collect health information on Canadians that cannot be captured or may be inaccurately reported. This information will help policy makers understand the true extent of health problems and to design better policies to prevent and manage these problems. On the issue of the 1911 Census, individual records cannot be made available because of confidentiality provisions in the legislation under which that census was taken. Still, this government recognizes that it must balance the need to protect personal privacy with the demands for access to historical census records. As a result, the Government announced in February 2003 that future releases of census records, beginning with the 1911 Census, would be governed by amendments to the Statistics Act. This is why the Government introduced Bill S-13, An Act to amend the Statistics Act, and the Honourable Lucienne Robillard, as Minister Responsible for Statistics Canada, is reviewing the matter including any legislation to amend the Statistics Act. Thank you again for your e-mail. I hope that this information will be of assistance. Sincerely, Janice Robinson Constituency Assistant Office of the Honourable Scott Brison Member of Parliament Kings-Hants 902-542-4010 (p) 902-542-4184 (f)

Thank you Shirley. It would be nice if the assistants to our MPs would get up to date on things. Lucienne Robillard is no longer Minister of Industry and so will not be "reviewing the matter". Conditions and restrictions contained in Bill S-13 were totally unacceptable to the genealogical and historical communities. It is dead and should remain buried. To All. When forwarding email messages received from MPs or Senators please include the original addressing header as I have done with the message below from Shirley. Doing so, when these are added to a Correspondence Log , will allow the reader to see exactly when the message was sent by the parliamentarian. As a side benefit these headers will sometimes include an additional email address at which an MP or Senator may be contacted. When adding an email to a Correspondence Log and I think it appropriate for personal privacy I frequently edit the header to remove the recipient's address as I have done with Shirley's address below. Thank you. Happy Hunting. Gordon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shirley" To: <CANADA-CENSUS-CAMPAIGN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 7:08 AM Subject: [CCC] 1911 census release Following is an e-mail i received this morning from Scott Brison via his constituency assistant. Typical political non-commital answer. Dear Ms. Lane, Thank you for your e-mail concerning the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) and individual records from the 1911 Census. In order to address longstanding limitations within Canada's health surveillance system, the federal government has given Statistics Canada a mandate to develop a direct measure health survey. As such, Statistics Canada is developing the CHMS: a voluntary survey based on direct measure of 5,000 to 10,000 people in a nationally representative sample. For this survey, 'direct measures' could include both blood and urine samples as well as height and weight and fitness. Collecting information from a nationally representative sample in order to extrapolate trends and distributional patterns of selected diseases and health risk factors falls within the expertise of Statistics Canada. The CHMS will collect health information on Canadians that cannot be captured or may be inaccurately reported. This information will help policy makers understand the true extent of health problems and to design better policies to prevent and manage these problems. On the issue of the 1911 Census, individual records cannot be made available because of confidentiality provisions in the legislation under which that census was taken. Still, this government recognizes that it must balance the need to protect personal privacy with the demands for access to historical census records. As a result, the Government announced in February 2003 that future releases of census records, beginning with the 1911 Census, would be governed by amendments to the Statistics Act. This is why the Government introduced Bill S-13, An Act to amend the Statistics Act, and the Honourable Lucienne Robillard, as Minister Responsible for Statistics Canada, is reviewing the matter including any legislation to amend the Statistics Act. Thank you again for your e-mail. I hope that this information will be of assistance. Sincerely, Janice Robinson Constituency Assistant Office of the Honourable Scott Brison Member of Parliament Kings-Hants 902-542-4010 (p) 902-542-4184 (f) ==== CANADA-CENSUS-CAMPAIGN Mailing List ==== Keep up to date on Post 1901 Census Issues at http://globalgenealogy.com/Census/ en français http://globalgenealogy.com/Census/Index_f.htm