POST 1901 CENSUS PROJECT
Protect Canadian Census Records From Destruction
françaisThis article by Jim Bronskill appeared in the Vancouver Sun 3 November 1999Privacy chief slams move to reveal census dataOTTAWA – The federal privacy watchdog has warned the government to back away from plans to make confidential census returns available to historians and researchers. Privacy commissioner Bruce Phillips says the Liberals must resist pressure to release the data, collected from Canadians by force of law with a promise it would be kept under wraps forever. “The issue here is privacy,” Phillips said in an interview. “It’s having control of your own information – and not having people with a vested interest in getting into your personal information, without your consent, deciding what the rules are.” Historians, genealogical researchers and authors have long used census returns from the 19th century to uncover valuable insights. Census records were routinely transferred to the National Archives 92 years after the surveys were taken. But the information from the 1911 census will not be made available to the public in 2001. Researchers were shocked to discover the Census and Statistics Act of 1906 and several subsequent laws prohibit Statistics Canada from disclosing the 1911 information, as well as data from future censuses, to anyone – including the archives. Following objections from researchers, Industry Minister John Manley asked Statistics Canada to develop options for amending the legislation to allow access to the records. The first option is changing the law retroactively to override the confidentiality provisions under which all censuses from 1911 onward have been conducted. The second is amending the act to allow access to the 2001 census and subsequent ones. Phillips says neither of these is acceptable. Opening up past returns would break the legal promise parliament made to Canadians in 1911 and every census year since, he argues. “People who give information to the government under penalty of law on an unqualified promise of confidentiality are entitled to expect that that trust will be honoured. The notion theat dead people don’t have any privacy rights is wrong.” Phillips says procedures could be established to allow legitimate genealogical research by family members seeking access to returns filed by descendants. Amending the law to permit access to future census data risks compromising the process because people could refuse to fill in their returns or “start giving phoney answers,” contends Phillips. He notes the census is becoming ever-more intrusive. The 1996 forms included questions on personal wealth, religion, fertility and physical and mental disabilities. The 2001 census is expected to ask about sexual orientation. |
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