April 3, 1999

Nag Ottawa again about  freedom of information

    Ten months ago in this column I told you about how some federal bureaucrats were trying to withhold census information from the public and hiding behind the word “privacy” to do it.
     I am pleased to say that it looks like the public outcry against this action may have a chance of success. But more pressure is needed from everyday citizens, en masse.
    Senator Lorna Milne is drafting a private member’s bill for debate to convince the federal government to release post-1901 census records to National Archives where they will be invaluable to researchers, historians and genealogists.
    Senator Milne has indicated that support from the public is imperative, in the form of letters to MPs and to the Hon. John Manley (who has control over the activities of Statistics Canada), indicating why you believe these records should become part of the public domain
    Another initiative under way in various parts of the country is circulating petitions. Senator Milne has also said these are necessary to back her fight.  All petitions should be clearly  dated and show the place name and province in which it was circulated. Once completed, petitions should be sent to Senator Milne’s office.
    Suggested wording for a petition:  "We the undersigned  are concerned over the prospect of not being permitted to gain access to the 1911 and subsequent census records 92 years after the taking of those censuses in accordance with the provisions Section 6 of the Privacy Regulations.
    "We hereby support the initiative of Senator Lorna Milne in introducing a Bill in the Senate which would lead to the restoration of our right to see all census records."
    I stress that the wording above is merely suggested. Individuals and groups are encouraged to word a petition differently so that each  accurately reflects the feelings of the petitioners.
    This whole fight was started by a determined man named Lyn Winters in Kanata, Ontario who was willing to speak out.
    In a recent e-mail Winters wrote: “I honestly believe that unless we are heard on this issue, we will lose the right to see all post-1901 census records.  Once lost, it will not be regained.” Winters is an avid amateur genealogist. His concern is mainly that fellow researchers have the opportunity to learn about their family ties through the data collected by census takers every 10 years.
    From the tourism perspective, people visiting the Island in search of their roots is a significant factor, too. These are valid reasons to join the voice of dissent, but they are only minuscule parts of the overall issue.
    Using the “privacy” argument to withhold census data is so blatantly foolish, one can only conclude that there are bigger issues at stake than who lived next door to whom; what their birth dates were, what they did for a living and how much they earned doing so 92 years ago.
    The real danger, in my opinion, if census records are allowed to be withheld, will be  its precedent value in suppressing other information floating around in the bowels of Ottawa which belongs to the people, not to the bureaucrats.
    There is an all-too-prevailing attitude in the central halls of power that the everday people (you and me) of this county are idiots who can not understand the context and complexities of how and why government peons (elected and otherwise) do what they do.
    Unfortunately for the peons, freedom of information is one vital part of democracy. The people smart enough to elect their representatives to government have the right to know what those representatives and the people they hire are doing and how; so we can approve, disapprove or offer suggestions for other avenues of approach.
    This is our country every bit as much as theirs. And, information is already restricted enough by the provisions of the Privacy Act as it is written.
    Worth repeating are the words of John Grace who,  just before he retired as Canada’s Information Commissioner last year, wrote : “Too many public officials cling to the old proprietorial notion that they, and not the Access to Information Act, should determine what and when information should be dispensed to the unwashed public.”
    Remember, from the inquiry a few years back, the lengths to which the Department of National Defence was willing to go to withhold information?
  This is serious business.
  I urge you to write letters, circulate petitions and speak out. We can make a difference!

Nov. 20, 1999

Long live historians and manners
Open letter to Senator Lowell  Murray

Dear Senator Lowell Murray:
    The following quote has been attributed to you as taken from Hansard, Senate Debates of Thursday, Nov. 4, 1999.
    “ I say long live Sir Wilfred Laurier and Bruce Phillips and to hell with these historians..” If this quote is indeed accurately transcribed, I would respectfully point out to you, Mr. Murray, that Sir Wilfred Laurier is not likely to “long live” because he is already dead!  This reminder is sent to you just in case you haven’t read a good history book lately.
    As to the concluding thought in your statement above, such an on-the-record, broad-brush aspersion cast on historians from the chamber of sober second thought is frankly shocking coming from a person Canadians rightfully expect to act as a responsible leader of reasoned debate and an honourable gentleman. It is regretful that a person who holds power and influence would lower himself to the use of street-bully language, at any time, but especially in public forum. I would expect better manners and civility from my pre-school grandchildren on the playground.
    The above statement made during Senate debate of Bill C-6 (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Bill) is lumped with your reference to a story in The Globe and Mail on Nov. 4. In that story, Privacy Commissioner Bruce Phillips threw the weight of his office in opposition to the campaign of thousands of historians and genealogists to retroactively legislate the release of census data collected after 1906. That is the year that the Laurier government
passed into law a provision for the privacy of the information collected in the census under penalty of law by Statistics Canada from the citizenry-at-large.
    Incidentally and to point out that time does have a way of affecting change and a knowledge of history is useful to the understanding of this fact; in that same year 1906, The Lord’s Day Act was passed in Parliament. Some 80 years later, the Supreme Court of Canada found it unconstitutional.
    Your comments of Nov. 4, Mr. Murray, while stressing a negative side of this worthy campaign, do not reflect the considerable House of Commons debate and public controversy over the issue of privacy in this decade which resulted in the duly enacted Privacy Act with a restrictive 92-year clause to protect living individuals. (By the way, Sir Wilfred was already dead even by then. He has been gone for 80 years.)
    You, sir, will probably make it into the pages of Canadian history by virtue of your political associations and your appointment to the unelected chamber. Perhaps even for an outrageous quote or two. Bruce Phillips will also likely get a mention. I do not begrudge either of you your rightful place in history. Why do you begrudge the same for the less well-known? Do you suppose they are less important than you?
    To withhold census data is to relegate the history of ordinary, everyday Canadians to obscurity. The unstated message here is that only prominent Canadians, like yourself, are worthy of note and study in history.
    I have long held  this to be unfair. After noting your expressed viewpoint , I am even more convinced than ever that we must not lose track of the common majority, past or present ...  many of whom have demonstrated a sincere interest in family and historical research and a wish to pass down to descendants an accurate and full account of their heritage.
    I hasten to add without fear of my meaning being lost in subtly, that family researchers and amateur historians work hard and faithfully on behalf of their families and communities, and ultimately en masse for the betterment of their country,  and they do so willingly without benefit of a generous pork-barrel salary plus expenses and the promise of a disproportionate retirement pension. The generous benefits you enjoy as a senator are paid for by income taxes which derive their legislative origins from The Income Tax Act of 1917. The government of that day promised Canadians that income taxes were not to generate government revenue, but a temporary measure to help pay for the war effort.
    One of the primary arguments raised by Mr. Phillips against releasing census data is that government promises must be kept. Surely Mr. Phillips’ argument is misguided. Otherwise, with the Income Tax Act and a myriad of other examples of broken government promises in mind, his argument is, at best, a cruel joke which insults the intelligence of the Canadian public; at worst, part of the dangerous leadership mindset which, however earnestly held, mistakenly contends that large volumes of information collected by government and its agencies must be kept under wraps or destroyed.
    As an avid amateur genealogist and community historian, I freely admit my bias in favour of the release of census data after 92 years. As a professional journalist of 30-plus years, I fear the pervasive attitude of government bureaucrats dedicated to withholding as much information as humanly possible for as long as possible from the great unwashed, all
under the guise of privacy. It suggests to me that leaders believe that only they are responsible and able, and that the masses are stupid, insensitive and irresponsible and are not to be trusted to understand, extrapolate or interpret too much information.
    There is a privacy versus freedom of information tug of war going on for all the wrong reasons. Far too often, freedom is losing. Advocates for the release of census data for historic and genealogical purposes DO  respect the privacy of living people, the evidence of this is no quarrel with the 92-year rule. Any adult about whom potentially sensitive information might be revealed will be long dead after 92 years. The notion that this information may somehow embarrass their
descendants, and therefore should remain secret, is ludicrous. It might be equally argued that it could benefit them.  At any rate, it is a non-argument. What happened to a living person 92 years before, is now history, plain and simple.
    Under the law, as I understand it, a dead person can not be libelled or slandered. For all-too-obvious reasons it is impossible to commit crimes against them. One can’t, for instance, murder a dead person. So how can their privacy be invaded? In matters of civil dispute, my limited legal knowledge again suggests that a next-of-kin can act on behalf of the estate of dead relatives. Ergo, Canadians, through their government, CAN and SHOULD act in the interest of full public disclosure of pertinent details about the lives of our forbears.
    PS Regretful, though isn’t it, that Sir Wilfred Laurier is dead? I do so wish we could ask him about the “intention” of the promise of privacy granted 90-odd years ago. That intention is not clear to either side in this issue. Did Laurier foresee this day? Or, did Laurier really mean that census data would not be available to or used by others with vested interests regarding an individual during his or her life time?
    Like those people who had 19xx engraved on their tombstones without thought of likelihood they would live into the 2000s or the computer geniuses who  failed to allow for 2000 and created the Y2K kerfuffle; providing for the long-term ramifications of any action has proven inherent fallacies.