Debate on the privacy of information in censuses more than 90 years old will begin again today as Canadians are asked whether they think Ottawa should go back on a promise to seal the data forever.
The federal government plans to spend $260,000 to ask whether Canadians think information contained in censuses conducted in 1906 and 1911 should be made public, including such matters as whether people were classified as illegitimate or imbeciles.
People who attend town-hall meetings and focus groups organized by Environics Research Group, including a session in Halifax today, will be asked if they think the federal government should go back on a promise made by the government of Sir Wilfred Laurier that the data from the census would be kept confidential.
Information from censuses done before that date had been released 92 years after the data were compiled with no public outcry about the personal information that was revealed.
But Statistics Canada said it can't make any more censuses public, insisting that legislation passed before the 1906 count promised those responding to the questions that their answers would never be revealed.
Genealogists and historians believe the censuses contain a treasure trove of information.
Those forms would include not only the identification of the people involved and where they lived but also their annual earnings, their education, any insurance policies they held and whether they had infirmities that included being classified as "crazy, lunatic, idiotic or silly."
Many historians think the debate about releasing the censuses is silly. They say the federal government is reluctant to give up information that might provoke a lawsuit from someone who feels his or her ancestors have been defamed by information obtained from it.
"I think our government has an obsession with secrecy," Dalhousie history professor Michael Cross said in an interview. "It's like pulling teeth to get information out of this government."
He said the census data in the 1906 survey would provide the first look at the lives of settlers in Alberta and Saskatchewan who joined Confederation a year earlier.
The personal data from the census would provide a rare glimpse into the way individuals lived in the early part of this century, Prof. Cross said.
"It's one of the few ways you can get at the ordinary people," he said. "If you are using traditional sources of information you realize that newspapers are written by and for the middle class and only the upper- and middle-class people kept diaries -- that's why historians have been glad to get their hands on this demographic information."
Many people use the census data to find out details about their ancestors. Sometimes what they find out about Great Uncle Willie or Great Auntie Emma may be scandalous.
But Karen McKay, a professional researcher and president of the Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia, said the information taken nearly a century ago isn't sensitive now.
"They would ask if people were deaf or dumb, or an imbecile and in some cases they put down if someone was illegitimate or adopted. That was probably sensitive information then but 100 years later what difference does it make?" Ms. McKay asked in an interview.
She said some older people are worried that genealogists are going to turn up skeletons in their family closets. But, she added, younger people are no longer shocked by domestic scandals and want to know everything about their ancestors.
Ms. McKay said the federal government should release the census forms from 1906 and 1911 because they include valuable information to people researching their ancestry including the date that an individual immigrated to Canada.
She is concerned about the lack of action by Industry Minister Brian Tobin and his predecessor John Manley to make the censuses public. Mr. Manley appointed a panel of historians and lawyers to review the issue in 1999.
That panel recommended that the 1906 census be made public now and that the 1911 census be released in 2003.
It noted that censuses in Great Britain, Australia, the United States and Canada have been released without a single negative comment.
"I want to know what do they feel is in this [the censuses]that they don't want us to know," Ms. McKay said.
The first town hall examining the issue attracted about 40 people, most of them historians or genealogists to a meeting in Ottawa in December.
Dale Sewell, a spokeswoman for Statistics Canada, said many Canadians are interested in the Laurier government promise.
"Many people aren't necessarily interested in the records but they are interested the fact the government could go back on a promise made to them when they filled out census forms that all this information would be kept confidential," Ms. Sewell said. "We made a promise that we wouldn't ever release that information and you can't change a promise."
There have been suggestions that the federal government could change its 1906 promise with retroactive legislation providing that the census be passed over to the national archives and released 92 years after the data are compiled.
If the recent release of the British 1901 census is any indication, Canadians are anxious to get their hands on the old information. A Web site created by the British government has been swamped by more than a million hits an hour, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Records said yesterday.
"It's been absolutely astonishing," Ben Quinn, assistant press officer for Public Records, said in an interview.
"There's been a huge response in the United States and a lot of hits from Canada and Australia -- some people are trying to find out about their families and some are just trying to find out who lived in their house 100 years ago."