Mr. Speaker, in today's National Post there is a story about Grey Alexander, an Alberta sheep farmer, who is upset that the local area census worker has access to personal information about him.
Mr. Alexander was contacted by a census worker after he failed to complete the long census form in full. The problem is the census worker is someone he knows quite well.
To quote Mr. Alexander, “Elements of my income end up with somebody I see twice a week. What if it's a business competitor or somebody you have acrimony with? This is a small town”.
In today's Saskatoon Star Phoenix there is a letter describing a similar situation. To quote the writer, “There is no one in our community to whom I knowingly would have provided all the private personal confidential information contained in the census form. Not even the loans officer at my bank in town”.
Statistics Canada clearly needs to do a far better job of protecting confidentiality of census data in rural areas.