Islanders and all Canadians need access to information contained in  census questionnaires completed over 90 years ago, a research group  heard Wednesday in Charlottetown.

"People are crying for that information and need it to complete their  lives,'' Catherine Hennessey, a well-known city historian, said at a town  hall-style meeting in a city hotel. "I can't imagine anything that is going to  shock us as we move along the process, that would be damaging to  anybody.''

One woman actually did just that, breaking down in tears while explaining the importance of the census data as she attempts to piece together a part  of her life's past.

Debate is on across the nation whether people should have unrestricted access to individual census returns from 1906 and 1911.

Genealogists, historians and others argue that the records have significant  value as a source of information about Canada's past, federal government  officials say. Others say people were promised confidentiality when  completing their census questionnaires and that promise should be kept.

Canada's census records up to and including the 1901 census are publicly available through the National Archives of Canada.

Information in the Statistics Canada Web site said that regulations under  the Privacy Act states that information in censuses can be made public 92  years after it was collected. That act also states that where other acts provide  specific protection to personal records, the provisions of such other acts must  prevail. It is this provision which, according to a legal opinion received by  Statistics Canada, prevents the release of the post-1901 census records. The  1911 and later censuses were taken under a legally valid guarantee that the  information would not be shown to anyone else.

A research group (the Environics Research Group) is now gathering information across Canada through public meetings and focus groups. Its report  will be given to Stats Canada next month. There are two private-member bills,  one before the Senate and the other before the House of Commons, on  releasing the census data.

Sasha Mullally, an historian who is a doctoral candidate in history at the  University of Toronto, is doing research throughout the Maritimes and the  northern New England states on rural health care from 1900 to 1950. She  said because she is working on P.E.I. history, the only way to get answers  to her questions — the number of rural physicians who practised in St. Peters  Bay during that time for example — is through the federal government.

"You are effectively wiping out the history of early 20th century Prince  Edward Island, the social history of P.E.I., if you destroy sensitive documents,''  she said. "What exactly is it about this information that makes it so sensitive,  given  the context of other sources of information that are much more sensitive, yet much more readily available to the general public?''

As someone who often has access to medical records for the purpose of her  historical research, Mullally finds it hard to understand why the census data is  considered so sensitive. She said a person can also get access to court records  for that time period as well.

One option presented Wednesday was for the census data to be only available  to people with a direct line of ancestry. That wasn't seen as a reasonable  compromise by the crowd.

"I can't imagine anyone familiar with genealogy research would even suggest  that,'' George Wright, a member of the Island's genealogical society who also  serves as treasurer and historian of the Old Protestant burying ground in  Charlottetown, said. "You start out researching somewhere, you never know  where you are going to end up . . . this whole thing looks like a bureaucratic  nightmare.''

Danny Koughan is researching the community history of Fort Augustus. He  said census data is vital to his work. "If the access is denied from 1906 and 1911 and so on censuses, you won't  be able to take that community history to the next step, from the 1900s on,''  Koughan said. "All you would have would be second-hand information from  newspapers, word of mouth and stories.'' Koughan said he's against putting the census data on the Internet if it is  eventually released. He'd prefer for those wanting the information to have to go to an archives to find it.

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