POST 1901 CENSUS PROJECT
Protect Canadian Census Records From Destruction
FrançaisThe following article by Gordon A. Watts appeared in the Vancouver Sun 23 December 2000Census privacy laws will thwart research about Great-Aunt MaryGordon A. WattsHave you used information in Canada’s census records to find that great-great-grandfather James was married to Mary, and that they had four daughters and five sons, most of whom you did not know about? Did you find that James was born DD-MM-YY and that Mary was born DD-MM-YY? Did you find their countries of origin and the ages and birthdates of their children? How about 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? The census has been used extensively by genealogists, historians, sociologists, demographers and, in increasing numbers, by people seeking information regarding genetically transmitted disease. The census has been used successfully to settle wills and estates. All this, however, may have come to and end because of regulations and legislation going back more than 90 years. Under current legislation, the census will never again be released to the public. Up to and including 1901, census records were transferred to the National Archives, and subsequently made available to the public 92 years after collection. Clauses in the Privacy Act allowed the transfer of individual identifiable information provided that no clauses in other legislation prevented that transfer. The current Privacy Act allows the transfer of personal information under the control of a government institution to the National Archives of Canada for archival purposes. It further states that personal information that has been transferred to the National Archivist for archival or historical purposes may be disclosed in accordance with the regulations to any person or body for research or statistical purposes. In 1906 the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, by order-in-council, introduced regulations restricting enumerators, commissioners or other employees of the census and statistics offices at Ottawa from divulging information from census. The Robert Borden government in 1918 codified secrecy of census information by restricting release of personal information without the written permission of the person who supplied the information. Neither the 1906 regulations, the Statistics Act of 1918 nor any successive statistics acts contain time limitations on the secrecy of personal identifiable information provided by respondents. They provide no clauses that specifically state identifiable census records can be transferred to the National Archives after the 92 years provided for in the Privacy Act. Nor do they contain any clauses that specifically prevent that transfer. There is simply no mention of it. Because of this, Statistics Canada has taken the position that personal identifiable information from the census cannot, as a matter of law, be transferred to the National Archives and subsequently to the public even 92 years after collection. They base this positions upon an opinion received from the justice department in 1985. In researching reasons for instituting secrecy in the census, there is no indication that respondents were concerned about descendants seeking family information after 92 years. The major reason appears to have been a fear that other government departments would cross-index and use information from the census for taxation, enforcement of laws, school attendance, military service or regulation of immigration. Respondents are entitled to privacy. It is likely, however that they are concerned about that privacy now, not 30, 60 or 92 years down the road. Neither Statistics Canada nor the National Archives has ever received a single complaint regarding personal information from the census released after 92 years. A Canada-wide committee of genealogists and historians has been working on the Internet to obtain release, after a reasonable period of time, of Canada’s post-1901 census records. It encourages those interested to write their members of Parliament, Industry Minister John Manley and Heritage Minister Sheila Copps to express concern with the current restrictive legislation and urge the government to remedy the situation. Without a change in the legislation, almost a century of Canada’s history from census, and that of the foreseeable future, will be lost. A petition is also being circulated urging the government to take whatever steps necessary to retroactively amend confidentiality clauses of Statistics Acts since 1906 to allow release of post-1901 census records, starting with the 1906 census. Gordon Watts lives in Vancouver and can be contacted at gordon_watts@telus.net Further information is available at http://www.globalgenealogy.com/Census |
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