POST 1901 CENSUS PROJECT
Open the door to Canada's Historic Census
TOWN HALL MEETINGS |
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This page contains correspondence from Bruce Elliott, Department of History - Carleton University, relating to the Town Hall Meeting held in Ottawa. Professor Elliott attended the afternoon session of these meetings. From: Bruce Elliott To: Gordon Watts Sent: Friday, December 14, 2001 3:35 PM Subject: Census Town Hall meetings I took full notes of what was said at the first of the "town hall" meetings on access to historical census records, but following is a brief summary. The first of eleven "town hall" meetings to be held across Canada took place at the Marriott Inn in Ottawa this afternoon. Chris Baker, vice president and project manager for the consulting firm, Environics, indicated that his firm had been retained by Statistics Canada to conduct these meetings to ascertain the opinions of Canadians about releasing the 1906 and 1911 census returns. About 35 people were in attendance. The session was intended to run two hours, with 15 minutes allowed for each presentation, each followed by five minutes of questions by Baker only. When I phoned at the beginning of the week I was told that all the time had been allocated, but there was in fact time to hear more briefly from a number of people from the floor. In his opening remarks and in the Environics website, Baker was even-handed in his explanation of the issues, accepting without argument the historical value of the information and indicating the difference of opinion as to a promise of confidentiality. The presentations were audio and videotaped, translators were available with electronic equipment, though only one francophone appeared to be present, and three Environics employees in the back row concurrently took notes of everything that was said. The text is to be posted on the Environics website next Monday, and the entire proceedings will be available to the public after 45 days through the National Library and National Archives; access to information requests will not be needed to secure it. All speakers were in favour of access. The afternoon speakers were: 1. Gordon Taylor, for the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa who urged that the government accept the recommendations of last year's expert panel, which recommended that StatCanada comply with the existing 92 year rule. Taylor suggested that the debate should centre around the means of making the records accessible, such as digitized images on the internet, rather than about whether we would ever see them. 2. Jeff Paul, a lawyer, legislative assistant to Senator Lorna Milne, provided an excellent summary of the legal position and indicated that in his view Statistics Canada is breaking the law by not turning over the records of 1906 and 1911 to the National Archives. Paul complained that the tender documents for the town hall meetings perpetuated StatCan's fiction that there was a promise of perpetual confidentiality. He indicated that the current hearings were a waste of money as the Canadian people have already spoken, in lengthy petitions and through the expert panel. His point about waste of money was echoed by one or two other speakers. 3. Lyn Winters, retired investigator for the federal Information Commissioner, emphasized that if StatCan wants to defend its integrity in the eyes of the public, it would do better to refrain from advancing the kind of unsubstantiated claims upon which it has based its blocking of access to the records. In response to a question, he indicated that he thought increasingly intrusive questions rather than fear of retrospective release lay behind any reluctance of Canadians to answer current questionnaires. 4. Carol Martin of the Historical Society of the Gatineau presented the case for local history. She pointed out the new questions asked in 1911 concerning secondary occupations, insurance, and marital separation, and noted that questions about livestock partially made up for the unfortunate destruction of the agricultural schedules. Mr Baker asked each speaker why they thought StatCan was dragging its feet on release if they thought the evidence on the so-called promise was clear. Speakers indicated their bewilderment and frustration; one or two said they had their own suspicions they would not air in this forum. Baker also asked them to comment upon the compromise solution worked out last year by StatCan but not implemented, copies of which were available. Everyone who addressed the question rejected its viability. Carol Martin pointed out that allowing only direct descendants and members of accredited academic bodies access would not serve the needs of local historians. Jeff Paul mentioned the case of a Metis who established his right to aboriginal hunting rights through census records, and noted that the proposal would deny access to the Crown that would be given to family, denying the principle of equal disclosure. Bill Arthurs, one of several speakers briefly at the podium, indicated that genealogists try to trace collateral branches and that the proposal must have been drawn by a bureaucrat who does not understand what family historians do. Gerry Conway said that he could access information on his cousins in the Boston States but not in Canada, and indicated that he wished the census questions had been MORE intimate, to let us know what these people were like. Carol Ingram, an adoptee, indicated that she would be denied access to census records under the compromise solution, as legally she is a child of her adoptive parents. Patricia Roberts Pichette pointed out that Home Children whose names had changed faced the same exclusion, and lamented New Zealand's decision in 1972 to destroy that country's historical census records; she did not know the rationale. The only francophone present, Marie Marthe Dubois, showed how census records lead to other records in research. Ruth Kirk indicated her distress at the Privacy Commissioner's recommendation of destruction and echoed Carol Martin's remark that too much had already been destroyed. It was also pointed out that Sen. Milne's bill passed Senate Committee yesterday and was put on the order paper today for third reading early in the new year. MP Murray Calder's bill had been withdrawn in the Commons. Scheduled to speak this evening are: Alison Hare, Ottawa Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society Chad Gaffield, University of Ottawa, member of the former Expert Panel Patricia McGregor Murray Long Yours sincerely, Bruce S. Elliott Department of History Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario Professor Elliott sent an addendum after reading the presentation of Murray Long from the evening session. He said: "Murray Long's presentation is especially interesting. The one thing that worries me about it is his support of allowing people to "op out" of eventual release at the time future censuses are taken. This would do more than "inconvenience some historians and genealogists": it could well render the data useless for historical statistical analysis because their absence in sufficient numbers could warp what would otherwise be a total population record into a skewed sample." |
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