EXTRACTS FROM HANSARD
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PROCEEDINGS OF CANADA'S HOUSE OF COMMONS
The following extract has been taken from Hansard Records of Canada's House of Commons:
36th Parliament, 2nd Session
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 61
Thursday, March 2, 2000
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
1911 CENSUS RECORDS
Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Ref.) moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take all necessary steps to release the 1911 census records once they have been deposited in the National Archives in 2003.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to a motion on an important matter which has
been of some concern. It reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take all necessary steps to release the 1911 census records once they have been deposited in the National Archives in 2003.
On its face the motion may appear to be a rather technical and arcane matter of concern only to a
small community of genealogists and amateur historians, but in fact the motion speaks to a very
important matter about access to our shared history as a country.
All members of this place will know, having been contacted undoubtedly by members of genealogical organizations, historical associations, archivists and others, that the rules respecting the normal release of the census data collected from the 1911 census have been interpreted in such as way as to prevent their public release and access. Hence, for the first time in Canadian history, historians will not have access to the data collected in the 1911 census.
Up to and including the 1901 census in Canada, the census records were transferred to the National Archives and were subsequently made available to the public 92 years after collection. This was possible because clauses in the Privacy Act allowed for the release of certain pieces of information to the National Archives subject to certain aspects of the Privacy Act.
However, in 1906 the Government of Canada passed an act respecting the census and statistics in
which section 68 empowered the governor in council, the cabinet, to make regulations respecting
confidentiality. The government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1906 did in fact promulgate certain orders in council which restricted access to the census of 1911.
Apparently it did this because at that time there was concern among the public that the data collected could be used in the assessment of taxation and perhaps for the conscription of Canadians in a future wartime conflict. There was some political sensitivity and a feeling at that time that the public should be assured the information it was obliged to surrender to the government would be kept in confidence and not used for other public purposes.
However, no commitment was made by the government either in statute or regulation at that time
that this information would be kept secret in perpetuity. It was clear to all concerned, according
to many of the historians who have examined this matter, that the regulation applied in the context of the day. People understandably did not want to have bureaucrats, politicians or others having access to personal information which they were required to surrender under the Statistics Act.
It is a long and much honoured convention both in this country and in similar jurisdictions that
such information eventually after a reasonable time, roughly the maximum period of an average lifespan, ought eventually to become publicly accessible for research and academic purposes.
In 1985 the justice department arrived at a legal opinion, an interpretation of the statutory and
regulatory decisions in 1906, in which it decided the census data had to remain in secret in
perpetuity following the 1911 census. Thus today we find ourselves in the position where in the
last couple of years archivists, genealogists and historians have suddenly discovered that the
huge treasure trove of historical data which they anticipated would be deposited at the National
Archives in 2003, the data obtained in the 1911 census of Canadian subjects and citizens, would
not be made available.
All across the country there are tens of thousands of concerned Canadians who take a deep interest in the history of the country. They began to express their concern about the secret nature of the census records.
This is important because as we all know, in the first decade of the 20th century, there was an
enormous wave of immigration into Canada. Many people today can trace their ancestors' arrival to Canada to that period between 1901 and 1911. Many millions of Canadian families have some ancestors who arrived, acquired land and began their lives in this great country during those early years of development, immigration and settlement.
The 1911 census represents a critical link to the past for historians and genealogists. For us it is a window which allows us to find who arrived generally from Europe at the time, where they settled, how many people were in their families, their birth dates, their relatives, the location of their land and their occupations.
I do not think the release of this very basic genealogical data would in any way violate the privacy of those who lived in the country between 1901 and 1911. It goes without saying that the vast majority of those people who were subject to the 1911 census are today posthumous Canadians and indeed have no living interest in the release of this information, but there are some. I can say with some pride that next week my grandfather, Mart Kenney, a great Canadian musician, will be celebrating his 90th birthday. He was born in 1910 in Vancouver. I asked him if he would be concerned if I and his other descendants could have access to census information concerning his family in 1910. He said of course not, that is ridiculous.
If we could consult those who lived at the time of the 1911 census and ask them whether they would object to their grandchildren and great grandchildren, and academic and professional historians, looking at the information to find out where they settled, where they lived, how many people were in their families and other data of this nature, I am sure we would find that they would not raise any objection. I am sure they would be intrigued to learn that there are so many thousands of Canadians who are deeply concerned about their familial past, their regional past and national past and hope they will have access to this information.
Virtually every other jurisdiction in the developed democracies recognize the principle that we must respect the privacy rights of citizens when the government or state requires people to surrender information under sanction of law. That ought to be managed with great discretion. Information should for a lengthy period of time be kept secret. However, these jurisdictions also recognize that a time comes when such information no longer poses a privacy interest for individuals but rather poses a public interest for access by historians and others.
I can give examples of such jurisdictions. Australia releases its census data after 100 years. France releases its census data a century after collection. Denmark releases such data 65 years after collection, well within a normal lifespan. In the United Kingdom efforts are being made to release data after 100 years.
Surely the 92 year rule which we have respected in Canada until today is an adequate period of time to ensure and protect the privacy interests of those who filled out census forms in 1911.
The legal status quo is interpreted by the justice department and applied by Statistics Canada. It
does not only affect the 1911 census. It affects all censuses taken since then. If we maintain the
legal status quo in this regard, never again will Canadian historians, archivists or genealogists be
able to reach back in time and research the important information which gives us clues to the past
from whence we came.
Mr. John Bryden (Wentworth—Burlington, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to this motion by the member for Calgary Southeast that the government should take all necessary steps to release the 1911 census records. I can give him the happy news that we do not require the government to take this step whatsoever. There is a private member's bill, Bill C-206, which is before the House on the order of precedence at this moment which would do precisely what the member for Calgary Southeast requires.
An hon. member: Which member?
Mr. John Bryden: I believe it is the member for Wentworth—Burlington who has this particular
private member's bill. I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that not only does the member for Wentworth—Burlington have this bill before the House, he has some 112 seconders from all parties who gave support to this bill to go on the order of precedence. I do not know whether the member for Calgary Southeast was one of those who actually seconded this particular piece of legislation. I hope he was.
What it does is it amends the Access to Information Act such that schedule II of the act is eliminated. Schedule II of the Access to Information Act lists those pieces of legislation that
particularly raise barriers for the disclosure of certain types of information. For example, one of
the schedule II items is in the Income Tax Act where a non-profit organization's financial returns
and other types of personal information are not available. That is in the Income Tax Act. The
Statistics Act is similar in that it restricts access to certain types of census records going all the way back to 1911. However, Bill C-206, by eliminating schedule II, brings all these other items
of legislation under the Access to Information Act.
What happens is the Access to Information Act is the superior legislation when it comes to measuring whether information in other legislation should be withheld or not. So whether it is the Statistics Act, or the Income Tax Act or any other items of legislation that have withholding clauses, they still have to be subject to the test of the Access to Information Act.
Bill C-206, among other things, amends the Access to Information Act such that all documents held by the government over 30 years old which are not obviously a threat to national security if disclosed, or would disclose information that would be injurious to individuals and so on and so forth, or all documents that do not have obvious injury components in terms of their impact on the public would automatically be released.
I have had representations from the people from Statistics Canada. They are of the view that if Bill C-206 is allowed to go forward and amend the Access to Information Act as it exists, then the Statistics Canada legislation that prevents the 1911 census records from being released will be overturned and these documents will be readily available, at least census records up to 30 years ago.
The member in his motion is calling on the government to act when in fact we have the happy situation for us all that it is not the government that needs to act, it is backbench MPs who have this opportunity to act. What is particularly important about Bill C-206, my private member's bill—I have to admit it is mine—is that in order to get onto the order paper it sought and received the seconding by 112 members of the House, all backbench MPs on all sides of this House, no government members or parliamentary secretaries.
This was 100% a backbench initiative. Indeed the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois were especially supportive of this initiative. I am very pleased to report that although I have to say that unfortunately the Reform Party did move a point of privilege on Bill C-206. I regret that there is some doubt now whether Bill C-206 will indeed stay on the order of precedence.
I realize that the Reform point of privilege was poorly advised because I think the Reform Party
were under the impression that certain changes were made to Bill C-206, which subsequently got
unanimous consent in the House, that may have substantially affected things in the bill that the
Reform Party would have been very concerned about.
I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that when I sought unanimous consent for Bill C-206 I was convinced that the support originally indicated for Bill C-206 when I originally sought the signatures would remain. Regardless of any changes that I undertook, and which I obtained unanimous consent for, I thought that those changes would by and large receive the support of the very seconders who put their names to the original bill.
However this is before the House. I am confident that the members of the Reform Party, and the Bloc Quebecois indeed, have I think an enormous interest and a vital interest, as we all do as parliamentarians, in openness in government and being able to access the documents, be they census records or any other kind of government documents that we need to have in order to be informed about the efficiency of the operation of government.
I want to return to the motion, but I shall say in passing that I have examined very carefully Bill
C-206 and the impact of its amendments on the current Access to Information Act and I have compared it to the American freedom of information act. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that to reform, to use the word that my colleagues opposite do favour a lot, the Access to Information Act with Bill C-206 will create the most sophisticated and the most effective freedom of information legislation in the world.
It is no wonder that this amendment is coming forward from not just this private member but from private members on all sides of the House who have at least endorsed the principle of the bill to see that it would get on the order of precedence. They may have difficulty with some of the changes that might occur at committee stage or that might occur at report stage. Even some members might decide to vote against the bill when it finally reaches third reading because of some changes they might have perceived en route, but the point is that backbench MPs in this parliament for the first time ever have advanced a bill based on seconding the bill in principle, and it is before the House.
I would expect that if it goes through, and I am surely hopeful that it will, it will address the
concern of the member for Calgary Southeast about the 1911 census records. It will fix that problem immediately. He can say that to his constituents and he can say to all those people who have wrote we MPs and have said open those records because they are part of our historic heritage. If the Reform Party, backbench MPs, opposition MPs, the Bloc Quebecois MPs, the Conservatives and the NDP are indeed supportive of openness in government, I am sure that they do not need to just support this motion of the member for Calgary Southeast. They have the opportunity to actually see it enacted by supporting Bill C-206.
Mr. Ghislain Lebel (Chambly, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate, which deals with Motion No. 160, in spite of the fact that the member for Wentworth—Burlington talked about his private member's bill.
What we have here—and Bloc Quebecois members generally share my views on this and certain agree with the comments I am about to make—is a member who moved a motion, Motion No. 160, which we are debating today, and another one, the member for Wentworth—Burlington, in Ontario, who introduced a bill on basically the same issue.
The member for Wentworth—Burlington is trying to embellish somewhat the background for his bill. Reformers have complained in this House, as did our House leader, who is recovering from his recent open heart surgery, and to whom I wish a speedy recovery. The Minister of Human Resources Development, while wishing him no harm, must hope that his recovery will be a long one, because we know the dedication of the member for Roberval in handling issues like human resources development in particular.
The member—he may be sick but he is by no means dead; he is a strong man and he is getting his strength back—spoke out against the actions of the member for Wentworth—Burlington, who collected signatures from his colleagues here, in parliament. I very clearly recall that the member for Roberval said—and I know what he was talking about, being a notary myself—that it was like a notary reading a five page notarial act, having the last page signed and, after the parties have signed, changing the first four pages, putting in there whatever he wanted, and passing that for the authentic act. There would be a possibility of fraud, and the Quebec Notarial Act, which I respect, would say that it is not a valid document.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of attitude and behaviour that make the member for Wentworth—
Burlington a terribly suspicious character in this parliament. There is no man more partisan, no
Orangeman more orange than him. The member for Wentworth—Burlington is a danger to his opposition colleagues, because keeping one's word is a concept that does not mean anything to him. He has no respect for this principle.
An hon. member: He is arrogant.
Mr. Ghislain Lebel: He is arrogant, indeed, and a resolutely orange Orangemen. I would rather
put my confidence in my colleague from the Reform Party who gave us the real reasons why the 1911 census records should be released.
Some people in our society claim that release should be allowed, while others push respect for
confidentiality and privacy too far. Even if it became known 92 years later that, in 1911, my
grandfather owned two horses instead of one, I wonder how this could bother him. He has, unfortunately, been dead for quite some time.
What I mean is that one should not be mean either as the member for Wentworth—Burlington usually is.
My colleague's initiative shows an obvious interest in history. At a time when we are talking about genetic diseases, to have a period of time, even if its only five years in our history to which one does not have access, is to deprive people of the opportunity to track down their roots and know their genealogy, going as far back as their forebears, beyond 1911, but somehow there is a link missing here in demographic and sociological data. This is something we have to respect, like anything else, and provide to those who are interested. I for one am interested.
If we were talking about butterflies, for instance, it might be different. I am not that keen on
butterflies, even though I like my colleague Mr. Hanfield, who is a notary in Mont-Saint-Hilaire
and an entomologist who wrote a manual on butterflies in Quebec.
My friend, the notary Louis Hanfield from Mont-Saint-Hilaire, whom I salute in passing, published Le Guide des papillons du Québec last summer. It is fantastic. I am interested in butterflies. If my friend Louis Hanfield had skipped one page, and three or four butterflies were missing from his guide, I would not mind because butterflies are not what I dream about.
On the other hand, I have a keen interest in genealogy. I know mine, I know Quebec's history.
Quebecers, especially those sitting here, know their history very well. They know about their past, including the history of Acadia. We have a colleague here who comes from there. For the most part, Quebecers and Acadians share the same roots. We are proud, as he is proud too.
For some, history is an important field, if only for research into genetic defects. I know a lot of
the history of Quebec and eastern Canada, but I know a lot less about western Canada or the context surrounding the development of the central and western provinces. There is information there.
I have been in Saskatchewan to visit my friend the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle. Qu'Appelle is a French sounding word. It comes from the French language. How is it there is a region, a city, a town with that name in Saskatchewan? For me, a marvelling visitor to Qu'Appelle, I wonder what that means. This is the sort of information that could interest me.
I in fact stopped in Qu'Appelle. They asked me what I was doing there. It was the French name
Qu'Appelle that made me wonder. I was called to Qu'Appelle, a cappella, because Qu'Appelle called. I hope you understand. I am not sure I understand myself, but I follow what I am saying. All that to say that we can laugh here too. We can take this motion with a hint of humour.
Because of the credibility of the member for Calgary Southeast, not so far from Qu'Appelle, who
moved Motion No. 160, I will support it.
It is probably because he recalls that people in Qu'Appelle are of French descent that the member
introduced his Motion no 160. Because of his credibility compared with the total lack of credibility, consideration and respect for his colleagues at all times of the member for Wentworth—Burlington, I favour the adage "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".
At least I have the proposal for the motion of the member from Calgary Southeast, near Qu'Appelle, who calls his Motion No. 160. I call on my colleagues to support Motion No. 160 and to stand against the unspeakable assaults of the member for Wentworth—Burlington in an effort to get us to reject what I would call a fine motion.
Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Motion No.
160, which reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take all necessary steps to release
the 1911 census records once they have been deposited in the National Archives in 2003.
I appreciate the intent of this motion. I have received many letters of concern from genealogists
in my constituency and from around the country over the issue of releasing information.
My understanding is that Sir Wilfrid Laurier passed the first law citing the issue of confidentiality in the early 1900s. The information in the census of 1911 was collected from Canadians with the understanding that the material would not be released. Subsequent laws have reinforced the confidentiality of all data collected by Statistics Canada.
The information gathered in these surveys provides an important resource for the basis of policy and program creation, as we all know. However, people do not give out their personal information lightly. I have received many calls and letters over time from people in Dartmouth who have been contacted by Statistics Canada for various surveys, such as the census survey that we are required to complete every five years, and people are not happy about this. They have a pre-eminent concern about confidentiality.
I come from a part of the country where geneology, memories and our roots are extremely important and where our family heritage is a resource for which people are fiercely proud. Amateur genealogists are researchers and storytellers and they have a determination to find out where they came from and a determination to use every possible resource to do so. We in the NDP take their concerns very seriously.
When we first learned about the cries from historians and genealogists, the previous NDP
industry critic, Chris Axworthy, wrote to the Minister of Industry asking that he make a decision
about releasing this information to the National Archives after 92 years, which had been the
standard.
The feeling of the NDP caucus was that the issue demanded a balance be struck between confidentiality and reasonable access. However, the need to restrict access by Canadians to the post-1901 census records was highly questionable, particularly when there is much greater availability of census materials in the U.S.
The Minister of Industry deferred to the chief statistician who pointed out that he could not
legally release the data to anyone. Since then the federal privacy commissioner, Bruce Phillips,
announced his strong opposition to releasing the data by saying:
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.
Mr. Phillips also speaks of the right of Canadians to have control over their own information rather than "people with a vested interest" using and making decisions about that information. In these days of limited privacy and control of our own information, his point is well taken. The passions and implications for public policy surrounding this are fierce.
As the culture critic for the New Democrats, I am aware that one of the major uses of our public
archives has been for genealogical research and that this community feels that the denial of access to the 1911 census information makes their search for roots much more difficult.
In response to the concerns of the privacy commissioner and to calls from historians and amateur
genealogists, the Minister of Industry has now appointed an expert panel on access to historical
census records.
I believe that a respectful course of action at this point is to wait for that panel's report and see if some kind of balance, which I believe can be achieved, will be found to let Canadians find their
roots and allow us assurances of privacy.
Mr. Jim Jones (Markham, PC): Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise to address the
motion raised by the member for Calgary Southeast with respect to the release of the post-1901
census records.
Upon initial consideration, supporting this motion may seem to be quite a simple decision.
However, as we begin to uncover the complexities of this matter, this decision becomes a much more difficult one to make.
In recent months a number of genealogists and historians have articulated their collective
disappointment that the 1911 census records will not be available for review in the public domain in the year 2003. These individuals had previously expected the 1911 census records to be made available for research purposes in this particular year because census records have been, up to this point, accessible to the public after 92 years.
However, censuses administered after 1901 fall subject to the Statistics Act that explicitly prohibits the release of all census records. This prohibition does not allow anyone to access
census records for any reason. The only exception is that individuals may access his or her own
personal records. But that is the only current exception. An individual may not access the census
records of anyone else, not even those belonging to his or her immediate family members nor even those records belonging to members of the ancestral family tree.
The dilemma here is quite clear and yet it is quite difficult to resolve. We have two competing
interests that present a difficult case for the House. On the one hand we have the reality of
statutory integrity upon which our nation is founded and, on the other hand, practical idealism
presented to us by historical curiosity.
Many have argued that the release of census records is crucial to furthering the knowledge Canadians hold of their past, of their communities, of their families and of themselves. Access to census records is what enables individuals, scholars, researchers and historians alike to trace their
respective histories and to answer questions about their past: from questions as simple, yet so
personally important as when exactly one's ancestry arrived in Canada, to questions as drawn and as nationally significant as the face of the brave men who fought and defended Canada in the first world war. Answering these questions can indeed teach Canadians a lot about themselves and about their origins.
In fact, Canadian amateurs, historians and academics alike have called upon these records to answer these and countless other questions which offer great insight into our history as a people. As such. the availability of census returns up to 1901 have been a tremendous resource for researchers in search of information with respect to housing, health, income and general social conditions of the day. But again, researchers have been able to conduct their invaluable research based on the laws in place before 1906 which authorized the release of these census records 92 years after they were taken.
For the first time, census data will not be available to Canadians come the year 2003, the year
during which census data from 1911 would have been available in the National Archives for public reference.
On the other side, those who argue that the census records should be released to the public argue
that respect for statutory integrity is quite important, particularly for our nation. In 1906, when
the change was made that all future censuses would be kept confidential and rendered forever inaccessible, legislators made a commitment to Canadians. This commitment, this promise was that Canadians' responses to census questions would not be divulged to anyone, not even to the most trusted and loved ones.
The federal government currently requires Canadian residents to answer increasingly intrusive and intimate questions on its census. These questions include proddings into Canadians' marital status, physical characteristics, nationality, ethnic origin, wages earned, insurance held, educational attainment and also proddings into respondents' infirmities and sicknesses. Clearly, the government census is not an everyday survey or questionnaire. It is very involved and it can also make for quite a personal experience.
While most Canadians will readily answer these questions and willingly provide the federal government with the information it requests, others will be more hesitant to divulge this very personal information. Still, because the federal government requires Canadians to do so under penalty of fine or imprisonment, Canadians do indeed answer all these questions, albeit hesitantly perhaps. Why do they answer these intrusive questions? What puts their minds at ease in divulging this information? It is no more than the federal government's unqualified guarantee of confidentiality that allows Canadians to answer these personal questions. This guarantee is what convinced Canadians to divulge so much of themselves dating back to 1911. This guarantee puts the minds of Canadians at ease when, in the absence of such a guarantee, it is extremely doubtful that Canadians would willingly and accurately provide this information. The guarantee offered by the federal government through the Statistics Act was and remains the pledge that the federal government has professed to Canadians.
Here is our dilemma. It will please the member for Calgary Southeast to know that although the Laurier government promised that the information collected post-1901 would remain confidential, the puzzling thing is that it is really not clear why this promise was made.
Furthermore, archival records indicate that the confidentiality provision was designed to reassure
citizens that census enumerators would not pass along information to tax collectors or military
conscription personnel. What does this mean? Simply that the reasoning for instituting this law
remains unclear today and, more to the point, that Canadians in post-1901 may not have been as
concerned with privacy as we think they were.
It is true that the times have changed dramatically since 1901 and so have cultural values. While
today we place the utmost importance on personal issues, back then, as archival information indicates, the reasons for keeping census records forever confidential was that Canadians feared the information would leak to tax collectors and military personnel, not because they wanted to keep the information confidential forever. Canadians' concerns in 1906 were short term: "Let's keep this information away from the tax man and from the military". The goal was not to keep the information from historians.
At a time when Canadians are increasingly interested in their past and when private foundations, such as the newly created Historica are allocating millions to improve the teaching and dissemination of Canadian history, it does not make sense that we would be barred from access to our own history.
While I certainly do appreciate the concern for statutory integrity and privacy interests, I do not
believe that releasing the census records 92 years after the administration of the Census Act would pose an infringement on either of these principles. In the U.S. it is 72 years and in Australia it is 99, so 92 is reasonable. It is not an infringement of statutory integrity nor an invasion of privacy since after 92 years those who completed the census as adults are likely deceased, at which point the concern for privacy is moot.
Furthermore, Canadians today have been quite vocal in their support for releasing census records for research purposes. Given the overwhelming support for the release of the records, we in the House cannot ignore the call of Canadians. This is an instance where the sensibilities of Canadians, what they feel is right and justifiable, must be recognized. If Canadians of today do not feel that the release of census records is an infringement on the privacy rights of Canadians of yesterday, then we as legislators have no choice but to acknowledge their call.
If Canadians today wish to retain access to census records 92 years after censuses have been
administered, then I do believe that, given the precedent set in the period leading up to 1911, we
must accommodate them. In so doing, we would be accommodating ourselves as well, for research into our history as a people and as a nation may only be furthered by allowing access to these invaluable records.
Therefore, I offer my wholehearted support to the motion brought forth by the member for Calgary Southeast.
Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent from the House to divide my time with the member for Lethbridge.
The Deputy Speaker: Is there unanimous consent to permit the hon. member to divide his time?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
Mr. Keith Martin: Mr. Speaker, short of not getting unanimous consent, I will say that my
colleague from Lethbridge supports the intervention I will make today.
I compliment the member for Calgary Southeast for putting forth Motion No. 160 which asks that the 1911 census records, once they have been deposited in the National Archives in 2003, be made public.
The bottom line is that we have an issue here, pro and con, between two competing interests: one, for people to have access to the 1911 census and indeed the census after that once 92 years have passed; and two, the privacy rights of people who, by force of law, were obligated to provide information in those census to the government.
We have to look at the facts. If it is an issue of privacy with which we would all agree, we have to also look at the timeline. Ninety-two years will have passed before any information from this census could be made public. Virtually all the people affected by this census will be dead. Certainly all the adults affected by this census will be dead once 92 years have passed. Therefore, in the interests of being reasonable, is it not reasonable to allow information from 1911 to be released?
Why should it be released? It is very important from an historical perspective. I was quite surprised to see the number of people in my riding, and indeed people from around the country, who very much want this census to be released. The reason for that is not only from a genealogical perspective but also from the historical perspective.
These censuses provide invaluable information to historians to piece together the history of our
country in an accurate fashion. That is what the census enables us to do because it provides
information that deals with issues such as age, various demographic principles, housing, health and a wide variety of subjects that are essential for us to understand our past. By understanding our past, we get an important indication and view into our future.
Canadian history, if I can use the words of Irving Abella, is in a state of crisis because this
essential information is not being allowed to be put out. The public will be interested to know that this is not an arbitrary decision by the government. It is a decision that is there by law that was put forward by Sir Wilfrid Laurier. His law states that all information in censuses after 1906 would not be made public at all, contrary to censuses previous to that. Censuses previous to 1906 were in fact made public.
We have interesting dilemma on our hands and I challenge any member who opposes this worthy motion to show where it is harmful. If we look at the experiences of other countries we find it is very interesting. The U.S. and many other countries allow census data to be released after a time that varies from 64 to 100 years. If it were such a problem to release census information, would we not also find that this would be a problem in other democracies? Would we not also hear a cry from people who believe in democratic principles that the release of census information would somehow be an infringement on the privacy of individuals? Do we hear that from other democracies or other western nations? We do not.
Clearly we can see that our country by preventing the release of census information is compromising the very ability of historians, genealogists and others to get important information about our nation's history. It does not impede or compromise the privacy of individuals. We need to look at this subject in the historical context and the international context to find very clearly that the release of census information after 92 years does not in any way, shape or form compromise the privacy of individuals who are living today.
I know the privacy commissioner disagrees with the point of view expressed by members from across party lines, but he has a position to uphold and an important one at that. However the privacy commissioner is wrong on this issue. We need to amend the current legislation, take hold of Motion No. 160 put forward by my colleague from Calgary Southeast and ensure that the 1911 census records will be deposited, and they should be deposited, in the National Archives in 2003. That information should be made public to all who want to have access to it.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North—St. Paul, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have listened intently to the debate and I will say at the outset that I am opposed to the motion because what is at stake is the very essence of confidentiality.
I recall from my experience as a medical doctor, and the member who just participated in the debate belongs to the same profession, that confidentiality is the very essence of personal integrity. Even if we invoke the argument that we would like to study the history of our people, the history of our country, that we will sustain freedom of information because we are in a democracy, confidentiality is a supreme principle that not one of these points can supersede.
I heard during debate that we are in a dilemma. I agree that we are in a dilemma because there
are competing interests, but the question to me is very clear. All other interests are subservient to
the principle of privacy, in particular when the information was given to the Canadian census by
a Canadian at the time, though now maybe deceased, in the honest belief that never would it be
released.
Imagine a dead person in his or her grave, unable to speak today, and we, the living, say "I am
sorry but in the best interest of history, in the best interest of democracy, now we will forget our
promise to you".
An hon. member: What do you guys know about democracy?
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: Would the member just be quiet please out of respect for democracy?
The Reform Party speaks about democracy, but at the same time when I try to speak in a way that somehow pierces his heart and pierces his conscience, the member is trying to disturb me. He cannot disturb me in the ultimate analysis.
The real test of confidentiality is when one is tempted to breach it and one resists that. That is the real test of living up to confidentiality, even when only one person is opposed during that census time who may be living now and says "No, that may not be released".
I did not know this motion would be debated. What is really at stake here is that sense of public
trust. The member from the Reform Party is laughing at public trust. I am really saddened, but he
will not distract me. Only the persons who did not give consent to revealing confidential
information may withdraw it and have it released. That is the essence of confidentiality. He who
cannot live with confidentiality I challenge. How can we trust that particular person?
The real test of confidentiality is when we are tempted to breach it for some other wishes and if
we do not then we have lived up to the principle of confidentiality. That is why, if I may add, at
one time there was a study of medical confidentiality in Ontario by the Grange commission. You know, Mr. Speaker, because you belong to the legal profession, you would fully appreciate that it would impose the most severe penalty for breach of confidentiality.
In conclusion I say I hope we do not support this motion. It would be a breach of public trust. It
would be a breach of our promise. Though now they may be deceased the more we should respect them.
The Deputy Speaker: The time provided for the consideration of this item of Private Members'
Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on
the order paper.
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