It is imperative that the genealogists’ point of view be heard by the government and Stats Can when they are designing the next Canadian census!
We don’t want a repeat of the debacle that happened when StatsCan refused to release the 1906 Census of the Western Provinces in 1998 and by implication all future releases as well. It took a court challenge and an intensive letter writing campaign, as well as the hard work of Senator Lorna Milne to get it released in Jan. 2003. https://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/papers/117-Milne-en.pdf
Instead we got an unsatisfactory compromise where people can opt-in to having their information released 92 years later. Of course, many people leave that question blank, because they really don’t know the implications. Their information will never be released, so there will be huge gaps in family information when the 2006, 2011, 2016, and 2021 censuses are released. It will be a sad day for future genealogists, demographers and historians; our grandchildren and great-grandchildren!
Use the link above to make our views known. You have until March 31st!
It took me about 7 minutes to fill this out. Unfortunately there wasn’t a comment field.
Nancy Trimble, Durham Branch Chair
