The last year of the campaign to obtain the release of Canadian censuses has been a roller-coaster ride with almost as much soaring optimism and crushing heartbreak as the stock market.

The genealogical community in Canada responded to the challenge with tremendous vigour. From all across the nation petitions poured in with over 6,000 signatures. StatsCan received over 3,500 letters protesting their stand, and it is likely that the Privacy Commissioner and John Manley received only a few less. Thousands of letters and e-mails were sent to MPs.

Tsunami of Protest

This tsunami of protest has had a visible impact. A scorecard of the position that each MP takes on this issue is being kept, and all the time more and more MPs are responding to their constituents that they have come to the conclusion that the laws must be changed to allow the release of the line-item census material to the public after an appropriate black-out period. We have still to reach the point of enlisting the support of a majority in the Commons (151 out of 301), but the number in favour of release exceeds the number of those against release by a factor of 10 to 1. The problem is that there are still a large number of MPs who feel that they cannot commit themselves one way or the other. These are being subjected to continuing pressure to get off the fence.

Expert Panel Struck

Mr. Manley emerged from the mountain of mail in which he had been buried, and took the classic step of harried politicians; he struck a committee. "The Expert Panel on Access to Historical Census Records" was a most distinguished one; it consisted of two eminent lawyers, a sociologist, a university president and a historian - all academics. In general the genealogical community was heartened by the choice of experts, although we could not help but notice that there was not one single genealogist, despite the fact that there are estimated to be somewhere between 7 and 14 million of them in Canada. The Panel was set up in January and ordered to report by May 31.

The Panel members were very thorough and ran a month over their allotted time, submitting their report to Mr. Manley on June 30th. Mr. Manley ignored the many pleas to make this report public, and it was only published in December, a few days before publication was legally enforceable by proceedings under the Freedom of Information Act The full report is now available for perusal. Once again the public showed its sense of outrage with the huge volume of letters and position papers sent to the Panel. The Panel members appear to have considered these with some diligence. They made a gesture towards the genealogists of Canada by having two conference calls, which lasted an hour each and included a representative of each of the major family history societies, an average of about 6 minutes per presentation. Alberta was represented by the President of the AGS.

Panel Finds Good News

The final opinion of the Panel was highly favourable to the cause of the "releasers". They recommended the immediate release of the 1906 Western Census, and then the release of the 1911 and 1916 censuses at the end of the 92-year waiting period. They went on to recommend that all future censuses should be released to the public after 92 years. They suggested that the information package that is distributed with future censuses should make it clear that privacy restrictions would only apply for 92 years. They were convinced by the arguments of the genealogists that it was never the intention of the lawmakers that the census data should be withheld from the public for ever.

The Panel and Statistics Canada jointly commissioned a national survey to obtain the opinions of the public about releasing census data. Two telephone surveys were done. The questions were transparently worded in a way which would be more likely to favour the cause of the "withholders"(more so in the second survey than the first), and yet most Canadians resolutely held to the view that they were not worried about having their responses to the census eventually made public knowledge, and that this would not adversely affect the care and truthfulness of their responses to the census questions. StatsCan tried to put a different, highly eccentric interpretation on the survey. The Census Release Committee of our Society exposed this fallacious thinking with a Critique of the survey

MPs Get Busy: Papers on the Floor

Meanwhile there had been furious activity in Parliament concerning this issue. By the summer there were no less than five separate private members bills in the order books. Bill S-15 in the Senate, sponsored by Sen.Lorna Milne had its second reading and went to Committee. The motion of Calgary's Jason Kenny, M-160, came to a vote, but unfortunately, at the last moment, a Liberal M.P. suggested a watering-down amendment. It passed with a majority of 144 to 102, but, in the amended form, was a toothless bill that could easily be ignored by the government. Nevertheless there was a sense that things were going well for the "releasers".

Political Maneuvers Derail Progress

Then, in October, our fortunes suddenly reversed. First, John Manley was replaced as Minister of Industry and Minister Responsible for Statistics Canada, by Brian Tobin, an unknown quantity as regards his views on the releasing of the census. Then Bruce Phillip came to the end of his term as Privacy Commissioner, and was replaced by one of his staff, George Radwanski. Shortly after that the Prime Minister called an election. Under parliamentary procedure, when an election is called all bills that are on the order books "die".

So it was "Snakes and Ladders" all over again. We had hit a snake, and were being sent back to the beginning. We now have to convince a whole new set of people of the justice of our cause. Already a large number of letters have been sent to Brian Tobin (as of the end of January 2001, he had replied to none of these). He has not yet revealed where he stands as regards the census. He has issued one press release about the release of the census in which he has said that extensive further consultations will be needed on this matter. Genealogists have protested that this matter has already been under discussion for some 30 years; what is needed is action not further discussion.

Where Do We Go From Here?

1. It is even more important than before that that we keep up the letters to Statistics Canada, Brian Tobin, George Radwanski and all MPs. They must feel the pressure of public opinion.
2. We need to collect even more signatures than before on the two petitions (one for the Senate and one for the Commons) that are being circulated. This is something that makes a deep impression on politicians of all stripes.
3. It is now clear that the withholding of the 1906 and 1911 censuses is not only undesirable, but is actually illegal. Plans are being made to challenge the government in court on this matter.

Census Lobby Update - February 4, 2000

Things seem to be moving.

The last few months have seen a general increase in the activity associated with the census issue, and it is beginning to get much more media coverage, due to the involvement of the heavyweights from the Canadian Historical Association, and some very ill advised public comments about historians from a certain Senator who shall be nameless. There have been some important developments on this issue that members of the Society should know about. It appears that the letter writing campaign directed at MPs and government departments has been rather effective.

The AFHS sent in about 600 signatures in the end. By way of comparison the AGS sent in 175 and the official petition of the national Canada Census Campaign contained 5,649 signatures. Many many more letters and petitions from individuals and societies all over Canada flooded in to the offices of MPs, Senator Milne and John Manley, the Minister responsible for Statistics Canada, with many letters and E-mails from people in other countries.

Expert Panel appointed

All of this has been noticed by Mr.Manley. His response has been to appoint an "expert committee". It is too soon to know whether this is simply the time-honoured ploy that politicians use to deflect a storm of public outrage, or whether it is a sincere effort to bring in some distinguished outsiders to weigh the evidence from each side, those who support the Right of Privacy, and those who support the Right to History.

However it should be said that the mandate given to this committee looks reasonable, and the five members are all distinguished and well respected in their fields. The Chairman is Richard van Loon, the president of Carleton University, and a former civil service "mandarin". The other four consist of one academic historian, two eminent lawyers and a former Senator, now President and Vice-Chancellor of York University, with a background in demography. We would have liked at least one genealogist to represent the estimated 12-13 million genealogists in Canada, but are reassured that those who know the members of this panel consider them to be fair-minded and conscientious people. This group is expected to sift through the arguments from both sides and make recommendations to Mr.Manley for a compromise between the two factions by May 31st.

It is hoped that every genealogical society in the land will send a position paper to them. The AFHS Census Release Committee is burning the midnight oil to prepare two submissions: a general account of the great importance of making the line-item census returns available to the public, and a legal brief, prepared by Lois Sparling, our Chair, showing that the interpretation of the relevant statutes adopted by Statistics Canada is erroneous.

The Panel are to have a conference call on 9 Feb with selected genealogical societies to get their input. The call will last an hour, and they are to have each society speak for 5 minutes - that is a bit less than 5 minutes for every million genealogists! In Alberta they invited the AGS to represent family historians, as they are the senior society. Their president, Carol Anderson, will do the talking. We spoke to her the other day, offering a solidarity message and discussing the key issues.

Individuals may make submissions to the Expert Panel. We urge as many people as possible to make their opinions known to the them. They may write to:

The Expert Panel on Access to Historical Census Records,
Statistics Canada,
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0T6

or they may e-mail them at this address:

Plan to write SOON

The Expert Panel needs to have time to include your views into its report.

Activity on Parliament Hill

While the experts are trying to find a balance between the need for reasonable confidentiality for the census data and the need for Canadians to have access to their microhistory, there will be a flurry of activity in Parliament.

The private senator's bill of Sen. Lorna Milne, Bill S-15, to amend the Statistics Act and the National Archives of Canada Act, had its first reading on December 16th., and will have its second reading on February 8th.

Bill C-206, put forward by John Bryden, had its first reading in November. It relates to amending the Access to Information Act, but touches on the release of the census.

Murray Calder intends to reintroduce his bill to the new parliament, a call for the release of the census.

Gerald Keddy has withdrawn his bill on this topic and will actively support Bill C-312, introduced by Mac Harb.

Jason Kenny, Reform Party MP for Calgary South-East, has reintroduced his motion from the last Parliament, now labelled M-160. It has been elevated to the status of a votable motion. The first reading will be on February 8th.

News from Australia

Statistics Canada have long loved to refer to the situation in Australia where the confidentiality of the census was protected so fiercely that they actually destroyed the returns after the statistical information had been extracted, and none of the nominative censuses have been released to the public. This policy was actively promoted by our Privacy Commissioner, Bruce Phillips. The Australians have now had second thoughts about this wanton and ruthless destruction of their history.

For their next census in 2001, they plan to insert a box on the census form for the respondents to indicate that they want this form permanently preserved and released to the public domain after 100 years.

It will be interesting to see what proportion of Australians choose this option ....and join the Angels! There has been talk of adopting a similar policy for Canada, but we are not in favour of this, as it would mean that genealogical research could only be performed on people who were themselves genealogists. Think about it.

Where do we go from here?

As we have said before, this is unlikely to be a quick or easy battle. It would be possible for John Manley and the Government to totally ignore a favorable response from the Expert Panel (and that is not a foregone conclusion, despite the strong evidence that the 92 Year Rule has served Canada well) and massive support of the bills before both Houses of Parliament (and we know that our cause has many enemies on Parliament Hill). Delay is a way of life in Ottawa, but we hope that we will have some signs of how the Government is to respond by this summer. Our further actions will depend on what they do.

The AFHS Census Release Committee.