THE FIRST WINTER of the new millennium may go down in history as the time
Canadians discovered their 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's an incredible audience for any Canadian television
show that doesn't feature hockey, Don Cherry's mug or a band of fake
castaways - let alone a documentary. Video and DVD copies of the show
are selling briskly, and a book based on the sries is topping the best-seller
lists. Suddenly, Canadian history is hip.So it's ironic our nationalism-obsessed federal government is considering
cutting off access to one of the valuable tools we have to understand the
past - the census. Once a decade, Statistics Canada takes stock of who we
are and where we live. The numbers are crunched to help governments and
businesses understand how the country is growing and changing. Complete
census forms and their personal details are released 92 years later. To
date, the 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 censuses have been made public.
They are a treasure trove, allowing genealogists to trace families, and
historians to understand, on a household-by-household level, how our
ancestors lived and worked.It's 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. But legal
nitpicking and misguided concern over privacy threaten to make the 1901
census the last of its kind. Ottawa has held back the less-detailed,
mid-term 1906 census, and the 1911 census - scheduled for release in 2003
- may never see the light of day.The roadblock is an opinion in some circles that people polled after the
1901 census opened their doors and lives on the understanding the
information would remain private. And a promise is a promise. Naturally,
the people who recognize the value of census records - historians,
genealogists and archivists - are outraged at the thought
that this public resource could be withheld or, worse, destroyed by privacy
zealots.In 1999, the federal government sent up a panel, made up of eminent
academics and a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, to study the
issue. The bottom line of its report: continue to release census records
after a 92-year interval and amend legislation dating to 1918 that conflicts
with this policy. The report found no evidence to suggest anyone was
promised their census responses would be deep-sixed forever. The U.S.
makes its census records public after just 72 years, and Britain after a century.
Newfoundland's 1945 census was made public just four years after it was
taken, when it joined Canada. So far, Canada, the U.S. and Britain have
made public census records of a staggering 620 million people, most of them
long dead. There has never been a single complaint about invasion of
privacy.The panel also commissioned an opinion poll that suggests a majority of
Canadians - 76 per cent, according to the survey, support the release of
their personal census information after about 100 years. This apparently
was not the response Ottawa wanted. In December, Industry Minister Brian
Tobin, who's responsible for Statistics Canada, said more study and
consultation are needed. The census debate will become part of a wider,
bureaucrat-driven review of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy
Act.According to a news release, the federal government wants to ensure any
access to a post-1901 census "respects the government's deep commitment
to privacy". What this means is Statistics Canada is scared that a decision to
open old census records could make people reluctant to complete the 2001
census - even though the panel found no evidence that people balk at filling
out a form that will be made public 92 years in the future.When you're tackling the census form later this year, ask yourself this
question: Do you really care if, in the year 2093 when you're long gone,
some scholar or genealogist gets to take a peek at your responses?It's your chance to ensure future generations understand their history.
Staff Reporter Dean Jobb's column appears every week in The Sunday Herald. E-mail: djobb@herald.ns.ca