POST 1901 CENSUS PROJECT
Open the door to Canada's Historic Census
TOWN HALL MEETINGS |
|
This page contains correspondence from Bonnie Bileski to Muriel M. Davidson relating to the Town Hall Meeting held in Winnipeg. Bonnie's presentation to the meeting follows. Bonnie attended the evening session of the meeting. Muriel Thank you for your kind words. The presentations went well although the small turn-out was disappointing. Only about eight or nine people attended the evening session and apparently sixteen or seventeen the afternoon session. I was the only person registered to speak and I thought I would die of fright. It's a good thing I was the first speaker or I would have most certainly got "cold feet". The weather was so cold in Winnipeg today, that we all had cold feet. Several others spoke and they were all good presentations, all off the cuff but one. There was only one who did not come across very clearly in what he was trying to say, or at least that was my impression. The moderator was having a difficult time trying to pin down whether he was for or against the 1906 and 1911 Census being released. One thing that was "interesting" and brought forward very clearly in one presentation was the fact that there was no signage relating to Stats Canada and nothing on the hotel bulletin board to indicate the Town Hall was taking place. Further, the speaker was one hour late because he was unable to find out where or when the Town Hall was being held. I myself, went forty minutes early, and it took over half an hour to locate the conference room once inside the hotel. I was up and down stairs and around and around. Perhaps some people would have been discouraged and just left. I met Chris Bukoski and she was taking notes to send you more accurate details of the forum. I believe I was questioned for a longer period than the five minutes mentioned at the beginning of the meeting (or maybe it just felt that way). He really pounced on me about many issues, especially about the genetics but seemed satisfied with my explanations. After most people had left, the moderator took me aside and told me that he thought my presentation was one of the "most rounded" he has heard. He and several of the others have asked for a copy of my presentation. Attached is the version that I went with, give or take a few words. You are welcome to forward it to Gordon Watts if you wish. Again, thanks for the moral support. Bonnie Mr. Moderator, Ladies and Gentlemen: My name is Bonnie Bileski. I am a genealogist who supports the release of name-identified census records to public access after a reasonable period of time. I am presenting this submission on my own behalf. Although it represents my personal views I believe it reflects in large the opinions of most Canadian genealogists. I was born and raised in Manitoba and although I knew my ancestors came from Ontario where they had immigrated from England, Scotland and Ireland in the 1840’s and 1850’s and from Nova Scotia where they had immigrated from Germany as “White Protestants” in 1751, I did not know any of the descendants other than the branches of the family who had moved to Manitoba in 1893. My interest in genealogy began about three years ago when I became housebound due to a lengthy illness. From half a dozen names, I have expanded a few “twigs” to become a family tree of over 13,000 names. I have met many family members descended from those same ancestors. I cannot describe to you the joy it has brought to me in piecing together our family’s history. I have criss-crossed Canada several times to meet new family members and many have visited me here in Manitoba. We have exchanged information, photos, diaries, birth, marriage and death certificates and obituaries. Not once have I had a door closed in my face. Quite the contrary, I have received a warm welcome from all I have called upon and met. We have formed family “genealogy teams” whereby we share the research work and the information. Doing genealogy is not just a cold gathering of facts, but instead, breathing a life into all who have gone before. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. It goes to “who am I, and why do I do the things I do?” It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be forever lost to weeds and indifference and saying, “I can’t let this happen”. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish – how they contributed to who we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that the mothers struggled to give us birth. Without them we could not exist, and so we love each one as far back as we can reach, that we might be born who we are, that we might remember them: so we do – with love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are the sum of them. Our family plans to publish a family history book so that we and our children will know from whence we have come. None of this would have been possible without access to the Census records. Genealogists’ interest in the past is firmly rooted in a desire to know their ancestors as people and to bequeath this knowledge to future generations. To date, the 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 Census have been made public. They are a treasure, allowing genealogists, and historians to understand, on a household-by-household level, how our ancestors lived and worked. A Census is a national snapshot of the entire Canadian family. It is inclusive not exclusive: rich and poor, young and old, First Nations and immigrant, the gifted and the ordinary, all of us. The Census also play an important role in genetics but I will leave that topic for someone else. It is often what is least apparent that turns out to be of most value. What is not obvious to those yet to be swept up by an interest in family history is the intricate web of relationships spread across this country built up over time and how important that network is to understanding ourselves. One finds that prejudices and misunderstandings melt away when one comes to know on a personal basis, fellow Canadians from all walks of life and every part of the country, who despite the differences, turn out to be quite like ourselves. Ask those Canadians who have discovered often to their surprise that in their veins flows the blood of First Nations people or of one of the founders of Old Acadia or New France or the Quebecois who finds in his family tree that Irish great-grandmother or English great-grandfather. Multiply all those individual discoveries by seven and a half million (the estimated number of Canadians pursuing genealogy) and you only begin to grasp the positive role genealogy plays in this country. Other kinds of records containing personal information add to but do not replace what can be garnered from census forms. Vital records for example only record one specific event for one family member at one time. It is very valuable information but it will not show an ancestor and her family over a period of time. It will not record migration, schooling, siblings and their birth order, the loss of a parent, remarriage, the names of grandparents and other relatives, changes in occupation and financial status, and the names of neighbours and their children who will be family friends, schoolmates, and future marriage partners. Nor will those other records show as clearly the maintenance or loss over time of cultural identities that speak to persistence or assimilation: marriage across racial and ethnic lines, the survival or loss of a language or other attributes of distinctness such as traditional occupations, religions, or naming practices. All of this genealogically and historically valuable information, recorded on a regular basis every five or ten years, demonstrates the growth and development of Canada’s families, ethnic groups, and communities in a way no other document can possibly do. Canadians are becoming increasingly more interested in history. Some 2.3 million of us have tuned in to watch, Canada: a People’s History, the CBC’s 32-hour retelling of how we became a country. That is an incredible audience for any Canadian television show. And so it is ironic that our nationalism-obsessed federal government is considering cutting off access to one of the valuable tools we have to understand the past – the Census. It is the kind of information that has helped the CBC portray accurately what life was like for ordinary Canadians long ago. Yellowed copies of old census reports have even served as visuals for the series. Legal nitpicking and misguided concern over privacy threaten to make the 1901 Census the last of its kind. Statistics Canada, the agency charged with the responsibility of collecting the Census of Canada every five years, has taken the position that no public access will be allowed to individual Census records taken after 1901. They have refused to transfer control of these records to the National Archives, which would then permit the National Archivist to allow public access to them 92 years after collection. Their position is that the release of individual census records is explicitly prohibited by law for all censuses following 1901. Statistics Canada has referred to a promise of confidentiality in perpetuity, an explicit guarantee of indefinite confidentiality they claim was given by the government of Sir Wilfred Laurier in 1906, and subsequent governments. Despite requests to produce documented evidence that proves the existence of these promises, to date they have been unable to do so. In 1999, the government appointed an Expert Panel on Access to Historical Census Records. They studied the issue and supported the concept of public access to all Historic Census and recommend automatic release to the National Archives, after 92 years, of all Censuses prior to 1918 and from 2001 into the future. It had been hoped that with the Report of the Expert Panel we would see the government bringing down a Bill that would deal with our concerns and allow public access to Historic Census. This has not happened. Instead a compromise has been offered. I am opposed to a compromise solution. Why should we have to choose? A family is a family, fat or thin, small or large—the total picture! This position our government is taking is difficult for me to understand. The United States Census is available to the public up to 1920. 21 million Census files are available for the year 1901 on the Internet. We can all recognize that the legitimate and necessary right to personal privacy of all Canadians, including ourselves, must be part of a balance. No right, including the right to freedom of information or the right to privacy, can be absolute and no civilized society can function without such balance between valid but competing rights. I believe the release of historical census records to public access after 92 years is a reasonable, balanced and lawful answer to the important right and need of Canadians to know their personal and national pasts. |
Post 1901 Census Project Site Sponsored by:
Everything for The Family Historian!
1-800-361-5168 Bookstore Website
Copyright © GlobalGenealogy.com Inc. 1995-2009
