Greetings Listers Have you ever used information in Canada's Census records to find that great-great-grandfather James XXX was married to Mary, and that they had four daughters and five sons, most of whom you were previously unaware of? Have you been able to find that g-g-grandfather James was born DD-MM-YY and that Mary was born DD-MM-YY? Did you find their countries of origin? Did you find the ages and birthdates of their children? Did you find the location of their homestead and that in 1901 they owned one horse, two cows, and three sheep? Would you like to continue using Canada's Census records to find information like this? Did you know that the last Census of Canada that was released to the Public was for 1901? Are you aware that under current legislation in Canada THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER CENSUS RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC? Did you know that privacy/confidentiality clauses in Canada's Statistics Acts since 1906 over-ride clauses in the Privacy Act that allowed Census records containing personal/identifiable information to be released to the National Archives, and subsequently to the Public 92 years after collection? A Canada-wide committee of genealogists and historians, of which I am a part, are dedicated to obtaining release to the Public after a reasonable period of time, of Canada's Post 1901 Census records . We have been working on the internet encouraging interested genealogists and historians to write Members of Parliament, the Hon. John Manley - Minister for Industry and Minister responsible for Statistics Canada, and the Hon. Sheila Copps - Minister for Canada Heritage. The purpose of writing is to express our dismay with the current legislation and to urge them to take steps to remedy the situation. A formal Petition to the House of Commons of Canada has been drawn up and is being circulated Canada-wide. This petition, for citizens/residents of Canada to sign, urges the Government of Canada to take whatever steps necessary to retroactively amend Privacy/confidentiality clauses of Statistics Acts since 1906 to allow Release to the Public of Post 1901 Census records after a reasonable period, starting with the 1906 Census. This petition is downloadable from the Post 1901 Census Project page at http://www.globalgenealogy.com/census Available from the same website is a French Language petition, identical in content to the English version. These petitions will be presented to the House of Commons in October 1999. After many requests from people living outside of Canada, a petition to be signed by citizens/residents of countries other than Canada, but having roots in Canada, is also downloadable. This petition has been worded to compliment the petition to the House of Commons and will be used as support in the Senate by Senator Lorna Milne. Also available at this site is a more detailed explanation of the problem, sample letters to write to Members of Parliament and the appropriate Ministers, excerpts from Hansard that detail efforts by Senator Lorna Milne in the Senate of Canada, to bring attention to this problem, and links to other websites that have information regarding the problem and our campaign. There is a Scoreboard that lists all 301 Members of Parliament, their e-mail addresses, and shows how they would vote on a Bill to Release to the Public Post 1901 Census records. Click on your MP's name to bring up a correspondence log for him/her. Finally at this site are links to articles I have written on the Post 1901 Census campaign for the Global Gazette and for The Family Tree, as well as a link to a speech given by Senator Lorna Milne to the Ontario Genealogy Society convention. I have set up a mailing list to be used as a forum for genealogists and historians interested in Post 1901 Census issues. Everyone having an interest in Canada's Census information is more than welcome to join the list and participate in the discussion. To join this mailing list send an e-mail to CANADA-CENSUS-CAMPAIGN-L-request@rootsweb.com with ONLY the word SUBSCRIBE in the Subject line and the body of the message. Please do not have any other text, or signature files, in the body of the message, or the server will reject your e-mail. Please feel free to forward this e-mail to other lists to which you belong. Happy Hunting. Gordon A. WATTS gordon_watts@bc.sympatico.ca Port Coquitlam, BC ICQ # 9183352