He actually made some very interesting comments in 1999 when he came before the Senate committee. One of the things he said was:
If you would assess the degree of freedom that exists in any particular society, look first to the degree of private life that its citizens can command and you find a striking correlation....“Privacy,” in short, is just another word for “freedom.” Without it, we do not have any personal autonomy, no liberty and darn little dignity.
He also said, when referring to the mandatory questions of the census, the following:
That is a compulsory collection of information. We get, in my office, many complaints from people about the intrusive nature of the questions I mentioned merely to testify to the sensitivity of the information. It is not for me as Privacy Commissioner or, I submit, for any other individual, to decide how much privacy the people who give up that information in the expectation that it will be held confidential and secret by Statistics Canada can be expected to give up.
Do you agree with that comment, that if somebody feels the questions are intrusive, it's not your place or anyone else's place to decide how much privacy they should be expected to give up?