Submissions Received by the Task Force

Full Submission

From: Lyndall H. Winters
Sent: March 26, 2000

SUBMISSION TO THE ACCESS TO INFORMATION REVIEW TASK FORCE

It is my contention that Section 24(1) of the Access to Information Act (ATIA) runs contrary to the intent and spirit of the introductory paragraph or prelude to the Act which states:
" An Act to extend the present laws of Canada that provide access to information under the control of the Government of Canada" and to the purpose of the Act as stated in Section 2 as follows:

2. (1) The purpose of this Act is to extend the present laws of Canada to provide a right of access to information in records under the control of a government institution in accordance with the principles that government information should be available to the public, that necessary exemptions to the right of access should be limited and specific and that decisions on the disclosure of government information should be reviewed independently of government.

(2) This Act is intended to complement and not replace existing procedures for access to information that is normally available to the general public and is not intended to limit in any way access to the type of government information that is normally available to the general public."

Subsection 24 (1) taken in conjunction with Schedule II imposes a complete closure to those records described in the Schedule. Insofar as Section 17 of the Statistics Act is concerned, the inclusion of this Section of the Statistics Act in Schedule II, imposes a mandatory class exemption on access to census records which directly conflicts with the stated purpose of the ATIA:

"..to provide a right of access to information in records under the control of a government institution in accordance with the principles that government information should be available to the public, that necessary exceptions to the right of access should be limited and specific, and that decisions on the disclosure of government information should be reviewed independently of government ."

It is my contention that the combination of Section 24 and Schedule II naming Section 17 of the Statistics Act, operates in direct conflict with the stated purpose of the Act as quoted above and should be expunged from the A TIA.

Furthermore, the presence of Section 24 in combination with Schedule II operates in direct conflict with Subsection 2 (2) of the ATIA in that historic census records were freely accessible by the general public up to and including the 1901 census records. The refusal of these records post 1901 based on the class exemption imposed by Section 24 and Schedule II clearly contravenes the intent and purpose of Subsection 2(2) of the ATIA.

The Parliamentary Committee charged with the review of the Access to Information Act in 1986 commented at p. 116:

" We have concluded that, in general, it is not necessary to include Schedule II in the Act. We are of the view that, in every instance, the type of information safeguarded in an enumerated provision would be adequately protected by one or more of the exemptions already contained in the Access Act."

I respectfully suggest and strongly recommend that the Access to Information Review Task Force adopt this position and recommend to the government that Section 24 and Schedule II be repealed. This will permit our genealogical community to use the Access Act to formally request historic census records.

Respectfully submitted,

L. H. (Lyn) Winters

OTTAWA, Ontario
26 March 2001

Submissions Received by the Task Force