Greetings All. The judgement of the Federal Court that we have been waiting for was received by Lois Sparling today. I regret to advise that our application was dismissed without costs. This is bad news. We had felt that if judgement were made solely on the letter of the law that we could not fail. It would appear that it does not pay to be too optimistic, or to put too much faith in what others (i.e. Judges) will do. I have not yet seen a copy of the judgement so cannot say what the reasons for dismissal were. Lois is considering the advisability of launching an appeal. There are a number of things to consider regarding an appeal. * -- is it worth the effort to appeal when a legal action by the Informaition Commissioner, should he so proceed with one as a result of our complaints to him, may have a better chance of success? * -- should we appeal is there a danger that a Federal Court of Appeal decision might jeopardize any case presented by the Information Commissioner? These things will take some time for consideration. Lois feels that the Information Commissioner will not soon be commencing an Action to compel the release of the 1911 census any time soon. However, the decision of the Information Commissioner regarding our complaints against Statistics Canada is expected shortly. When I last checked with Dan O'Donnell in the IC Commissioner's office he indicated our complaints were in the final stages required by the Access to Information Act. I will check with him once more on Wednesday morning. We sincerely hope the decision of the Information Commissioner regarding our complaints re: the 1911 Census will be similar to his decision on the 1906 Census. The dismissal of our legal action does not mean the end of our efforts. It is another pothole in our road to success. It simply means that we will have to redouble our efforts in other directions. We must continue to write our Parliamentarians -- and there are many new ones to write to. We must collect as many signatures on our new petitions as we can for presentation when Parliament resumes in the fall. We must take every step to make the public aware of the Census issue and seek their support in our goal of continued unrestricted public access of Historic Census records. If we want to regain the access that we seek we all must be prepared to work for it a little longer. 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 Permission to forward without notice is granted.