NFLD-LAB-L Archives

Archiver > NFLD-LAB > 2002-03 > 1015123188


From: "Muriel M. Davidson" <>
Subject: [NFLD-LAB] Fw: Post 1901 Census - update on legal action
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 21:50:06 -0500


The following posting is on behalf of Gordon Watts, co-chair of Canada
Census Committee -- the posting may be translated or forwarded.
Should there be questions, contact either Gordon Watts or
Muriel M. Davidson
Co-Chair, Canada Census Committee
=====================================


Greetings All.

It appears that I have been remiss in not updating all regarding what is
happening with our legal action to obtain a 'writ of mandamus' to force
Statistics Canada to transfer control of the 1906 Special Census of the
Western Provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) over to the
National Archivist. While I have provided information regarding this in
my last couple of columns for the Global Gazette, I have neglected to
post it to the lists. Because of requests to do so, I provide that
update to the lists now.

The situation to date is as follows:

On 8 February 2002, our lawyer in Calgary, Lois Sparling, processed an
'Application for a Judicial Review' with the Federal Court. Lois, and
the other lawyers assisting her, felt that an Application for a Judicial
Review would be a faster method of achieving our goal than the court
action originally contemplated. The defendants served with this
Application were Dr. Ivan Fellegi - Chief Statistician of Canada; George
Radwanski - Privacy Commissioner; Ian Wilson - National Archivist; John
Reid - Information Commissioner; and the Attorney General of Canada.
All of the defendants have filed Notices of Appearance.

While this Application named Ian Wilson and John Reid as defendants, it
is known that both of them have supported public access to Historic
Census Records. The Attorney General is named as a defendant in any
actions against the Government or any of it's departments.

The Application names eleven plaintiffs from various places in Canada.
Those plaintiffs have all sworn Affidavits stating their reasons for
seeking access to the 1906 Census records. and those Affidavits were
presented during the last week of February 2002. The next thing to
happen is for the defendants to submit their Affidavits. Lois advises
that the Privacy Commissioner and the Information Commissioner each have
their own lawyers while the Attorney General of Canada, the Chief
Statistician and the National Archivist are all being represented by the
Department of Justice.

It is not known at this time how long this procedure will take, but we
hope to have results in a matter of months, rather than the possible
years that the alternate court action could have taken.

While this Application refers only to the 1906 Census, it is expected
that it will set the precedent for obtaining access to at least the 1911
and 1916 Census, and likely all subsequent Census as well. The reason
only the 1906 Census is mentioned is that it is the only one that has
passed the 92 year period after which it should have been released (in
1998). As I understand it, a writ of mandamus is good only for
something that has already happened (or not happened) and cannot be used
for future violations.

It should be noted that this is a parallel action to our collection of
signatures on petitions, and writing to our elected and appointed
representative to seek support for access to these most important
records. Petitions and letters are especially important at this time
when Bill C-312 is expected to be debated in the House of Commons in
early April, and Bill S-12 is currently receiving Third Reading in the
Senate. All are encouraged to write their own MPs and Senator's if they
have not already indicated their support for access.

The Scoreboards on the Post 1901 Census Project Website (at the URL
following my signature) are pretty well up to date with known positions
of MPs and Senators. Please check the positions shown for your
representatives, and if you have correspondence from them that shows a
position for them different from that shown, forward that correspondence
to me so that the Scoreboard might be updated.

Happy Hunting.

Gordon A. Watts
Co-Chair, Canada Census Committee
Port Coquitlam, BC

http://globalgenealogy.com/Census
en français http://globalgenealogy.com/Census/Index_f.htm

Permission to forward without notice is granted.





---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.312 / Virus Database: 173 - Release Date: 12/31/01

This thread: