Dear all, I checked the current scoreboard, and it seems that by far and away, we have a majority of elected representatives in support of releasing the census records immediately. In every province except Quebec, a definite majority of reps already support the effort, and virtually no one is against the concept. Since I'm not from Canada, I have a question: would this level of support be enough to "influence" Mr. Fellegi to follow the law, or Mr. Martin to pressure or fire Mr. Fellegi? Hilary Henkin Atlanta, Georgia Grandparents met and married in Toronto; I still have cousins there)

Hi Hilary. As I write this the total number of MPs that have indicated support for access to Historic Census Records stands at 178. This is 10 less than the 188 supportive members shown prior to our Federal Election. With the election we lost 48 supportive MPs but in recent days we have regained 38 and we are getting more supportive responses daily. We hope that before long we might surpass the original 188 Gold Ticks of support. This being said, there is no visible evidence that our Scoreboard totals have influenced Dr. Fellegi in any way, although our letters, email and petitions surely are certainly applying pressure in his direction. We must keep this pressure going. Also, to date there has been no evidence that the government -- either past or present -- has had any inclination to simply tell the Chief Statistician to obey the law. Dr. Fellegi started out by saying he could not release Post 1901 Census records because the government of the day had given respondents to Census a promise of never-ending confidentiality. He was unable to produce any evidence that such a promise had ever been made. He then claimed that he was explicitly prohibited by law from transferring the records to the National Archivist for subsequent public access. He was unable to produce such a law. He next claimed that should the people of Canada be aware that information provided to Census would be made available after 92 years they would be less likely to complete the Census either fully or truthfully. The people of Canada have been aware since at least the passage of the Access to Information and Privacy Acts in 1980 - 1983 that their information would be made available after 92 years. Since the passage of this legislation there have been five National Censuses taken with no evidence that knowledge of future access to respondents information had any affect on participation at all. In fact, responding to questions by myself contacts in Statistics Canada indicated that no known study of this had been taken following any of these Censuses. Documentation accompanying responses of the Information Commissioner to complaints against the refusal of Statistics Canada to permit the release of the 1911 National Census was illuminating. It contained excerpts from sworn testimony by the Chief Statistician. Through questioning under oath Dr. Fellegi admitted that there were no legal constraints against transferring control of records for the 1906 and 1911 Censuses to the National Archivist for subsequent public access. He took the position that he was not prohibited from transferring the records but neither was he obligated to do so. He stated that it was a 'policy issue'. I have long maintained that, as now admitted by Dr. Fellegi, his refusal to transfer control of the records to the National Archives was a simple matter of policy. That policy was, in my opinion, devised by Dr. Fellegi and it has always been under his control. He could have changed his policy at any time simply by returning control of the records in question to the National Archivist. To date he has refused to do so. After all this time I think it unlikely that Paul Martin would 'fire' Dr. Fellegi even though he is well past what is considered the 'normal' age of retirement. (Many believe that he should take his well deserved retirement.) Dr. Fellegi was appointed by a former Prime Minister and retains his position as Chief Statistician 'at pleasure' of the current Prime Minister. During his tenure he has developed Statistics Canada into a highly regarded and world renown statistical agency. I would be the last person to take that away from him. However, insofar as his position on public access to 92-year-old Census records is concerned, in my opinion he has been 'out to lunch'. We anticipate that before too long we are likely to see another government Bill brought down. We hope that should that happen those drafting the Bill will have listened to us and that it will allow the same access that we currently have for records up to 1906 -- with no added conditions or restrictions. Time will tell. Happy Hunting. Gordon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hilary Henkin" <hilary@proppersource.com> To: <CANADA-CENSUS-CAMPAIGN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 5:17 AM Subject: Re: [CCC] Post-1901 Census -- Let's Get To Work! Dear all, I checked the current scoreboard, and it seems that by far and away, we have a majority of elected representatives in support of releasing the census records immediately. In every province except Quebec, a definite majority of reps already support the effort, and virtually no one is against the concept. Since I'm not from Canada, I have a question: would this level of support be enough to "influence" Mr. Fellegi to follow the law, or Mr. Martin to pressure or fire Mr. Fellegi? Hilary Henkin Atlanta, Georgia Grandparents met and married in Toronto; I still have cousins there)