EXTRACTS FROM HANSARD -- PROCEEDINGS OF CANADA'S SENATE :

Debates of the Senate (Hansard)
1st Session, 37th Parliament,
Volume 139, Issue 67
Tuesday, November 6, 2001
The Honourable Dan Hays, Speaker



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Access to Census Information

Petition

Hon. Lorna Milne Honourable senators, I am still at it. I have the honour today to present 979 signatures from Canadians in the provinces of B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia who are researching their ancestry, as well as signatures from 371 people from the United States who are researching their Canadian roots. A total of 1,350 people are petitioning the following:

Your petitioners call upon Parliament to take whatever steps necessary to retroactively amend Confidentiality-Privacy clauses of Statistics Acts since 1906, to allow release to the Public after a reasonable period of time, of Post-1901 Census reports starting with the 1906 Census.

I have now presented petitions with 14,034 signatures to this 37th Parliament, and petitions with over 6,000 signatures to the 36th Parliament, all calling for immediate action on this very important matter of Canadian history.



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SENATORS' STATEMENTS

Nova Scotia

Lunenburg - Burning of St. John's Anglican Church

Hon. Wilfred P. Moore: Honourable senators, late in the night of October 31 or early in the morning of November 1, some person or persons tore a hole in the heart of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. They did so by deliberately setting afire St. John's Anglican Church, a fire that raged for one-half day and consumed a structure of absolute beauty and peacefulness, a structure of refuge, a structure of tranquillity and of steadfast worship. An elderly parishioner told me yesterday that he has not seen the mood of the town so darkened since the days of World War II.

St. John's was built in 1753 by German Protestants who were sent to Lunenburg to settle the seaport. Those builders were shipwrights, millers, fishermen and farmers. Their work resulted in a wonderful church with wooden knees, arches and rounded ceilings, which moved visitors to remark that it was like being inside a ship.

Honourable senators, for nearly 250 years, St. John's was the object of devout care and stewardship. It was a place of assembly, celebration and remembrance for our forefathers and today's parish families, including my own. Little remains of this National Historic Site - the second oldest Anglican church in Canada.

Honourable senators, I did say "little." I did not say "nothing." Remarkably, the font, the altar, the processional cross and some other precious pieces survived.

We are hopeful that the authorities will apprehend those who committed this senseless act of destruction and that the full weight of the law will be brought to bear upon them. We are prayerful that St. John's will rise again. We are confident that her parishioners harbour the will and can harvest the resources from across Canada to build a replica around those surviving pieces of worship.