Greetings All. The recent announcement of Prime Minister Jean Chretien that he would not be seeking re-election is welcome news. I say this not for any political reasons, or for stating any political or personal views, and would ask that readers of this message not inundate the lists (or myself) with protests about political messages. In my view, more important than the statement that Jean Chretien does not intend to run for re-election was his follow-up statement that he would be concentrating on the business of government until February 2004. What this means to those of us that seek to regain public access to Historic Census records in Canada is that for the next 18 months we can expect some stability in government and that we are unlikely to be facing a snap election that would interrupt our campaign and require us to start over once again with another new government. It is to be hoped that long before February 2004 we will have succeeded in our goal and will finally have access to 1906 and 1911 Census records, with the expectation of continued access to subsequent Census' 92 years after collection. Our legal action is proceeding and our Memorandum of Fact and Law will be completed and presented to the Federal Court shortly. We continue to be optimistic about the outcome of this action. To ensure the success of our efforts there are things that we all must continue to do. Some of those things are: -- Check the MP and Senator Scoreboards on the Post 1901 Census Project website to see what the position of your elected and appointed representatives is. -- Contact your own Member of Parliament, either in person at their Constituency offices, or by letter, to seek their support for a Bill that would allow the access we seek. Currently, Senator Lorna Milne's Bill S-12 is the only one in the running. A number of MPs have indicated they will not respond to people from outside of their own riding, so it is important that their own constituents contact them. Concentrate your efforts on those who have not yet responded to our questions, or who have not given a definitive answer. -- Contact Senators for your own area seeking their support for Bill S-12. It is expected that S-12 will be facing third reading shortly after Parliament resumes sitting in September (or October). If passed in third reading the Bill will be referred to the House of Commons for processing there. -- Forward any responses you might get from MPs or Senators to me so that their position on the Scoreboards may be updated. -- Signatures on petitions are still required to show a relative indication of support for our efforts. Download and circulate the petitions. Remember that the same people may sign both the petition for the House of Commons and the one for the Senate. People living outside of Canada MUST use the Non-Resident petition. Please use the proper petition as downloaded. There are specific rules regarding presentation and format of petitions and signatures have been disallowed because the proper format was not followed. (Names and signatures on a sheet of paper without having the wording of the petition at the top is not allowed. Nor are we allowed to tape such a sheet to another having the wording of the petition. Signatures sent in this manner are lost to us.) -- Spread the word of what we are trying to accomplish. It is not enough to support our cause -- that support must be visible to those in power. Talk to friends, neighbours and relatives about it and encourage their participation and support. Write letters to your local newspapers, call in to radio and TV talk shows to let others know about our efforts and why we seek to regain access to these invaluable sources of information. -- Send Access to Information requests for the 1906 Census of the Western Provinces to Statistics Canada. When that request is refused, send a complaint to the Information Commissioner. See my columns at http://globalgazette.net/gazce/gazce83.htm and http://globalgazette.net/gazce/gazce84.htm for more information about doing this. The more people that are aware of the problem the greater will be our support to have it changed. That support must be visible to our elected and appointed representatives. The greater the support shown to them, the sooner we will succeed in gaining the change we seek. With the help of all who read this message, we will succeed. 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