Mr. Speaker, this is a debate that we should not be having about a bill that we should not need. The Americans have been releasing census data over 72 years old for years. The British have a 100 year rule. I think very few of us in the House can understand why this country cannot have a 92 year rule.
The previous speakers have castigated Statistics Canada as being the problem in this particular situation. I would like to say that I do not believe it is Statistics Canada. I believe it is the Department of Justice, which is consistently making more and more interpretations favouring privacy, favouring the withholding of information rather than favouring the opening of information, the release of information.
There is a trend that is occurring in the realm of access to information law. Recently we saw in the case of ministerial expense accounts where a justice department ruling overturned the practice of 17 years whereby ministerial expense accounts were routinely available to the public, to the media. It was a justice department ruling. It reflected badly on the government and it reflected badly on all members of parliament on this side. That is because at every opportunity it would appear that the justice department is interpreting any ambiguity in the law, any nuance in the law, in favour of privacy.
In this particular case what we are dealing with is simply a resolution favouring confidentiality or declaring the need for confidentiality that was expressed in 1905 that did not have the force of law and then an amendment to the Statistics Canada Act in 1918 that did have the force of law which most of us would agree did not have the intent to withhold census information forever. It did not have that intent and other speakers have commented on this.
So why do we have the situation where an interpretation from the justice department overturns what is very evidently not the intention of the law at the time and not the will and the spirit of this parliament or the people in Canada at large? I would suggest that had Bill C-312 been made votable it would have passed the House by at least a two-thirds majority, if not three-quarters.
Let the record show and let all Canadians who are looking in on this debate realize that the backbench members of parliament, almost to a man or woman, support the principles in this legislation before the House.
I should say that Bill C-312 which I have examined very carefully is good legislation. It does what is necessary without opening the door to abuse of privacy. We are talking about census data that is 92 years old. This legislation even provides for the rare eventuality where someone might live more than 92 years. This legislation would allow for that person to object to the release of the census data or delay it until after that person had died.
What is inconsistent is the privacy legislation, or let me turn it around and say libel law. We have a situation in this country that when a person dies you cannot libel them, Mr. Speaker. You can say whatever you want about a person who has just died, no matter how dramatic or how false, and no one can prosecute you. Yet we cannot get the truth about a person because of this bizarre interpretation of the Statistics Act of 1918. You have the situation, Mr. Speaker, where you can say falsehoods about people but you cannot get the truth about people after they die.
There has been reference to the Privacy Act. It has been suggested that the Privacy Act says personal information should be protected for 20 years after the person dies. That may not be a good thing in the Privacy Act, because again it does not reflect the reality that happens in case law with respect to libel.
Do people really require their personal information to be withheld after they die? We have never had that debate. Surely we do not have to protect this kind of information for 92 years or perhaps 30 or 40 years after they have died.
It makes no sense, but then it might make sense if we examine some of the testimony presented before the committee that was charged by the industry minister to examine the issue.
I have a quote here from the Privacy Commissioner who appeared before that committee. The Privacy Commissioner in his testimony admitted that the Privacy Act did not apply to the census records of 1906 and 1911 and that he was there in the general public interest to make sure the privacy of Canadians was protected. Here is what the Privacy Commissioner said:
There should be no limitations on privacy living or dead.
In other words, the Privacy Commissioner is proposing that there never be any revealing of the personal information of individuals that might be of interest to historians. I hate to tell you this, Mr. Speaker, because I know you know it, but Sir John A. Macdonald was an alcoholic. He liked the bottle. There are great stories about how in his office in the West Block there is a secret passage that still exists and that secret passage was built so that he could get his alcohol delivered secretly.
Other members are smiling at that, but the point is that it is very important for us to know the personalities and the personal things about the people who lead us. For the Privacy Commissioner to suggest that type of information should be kept secret forever does such a disservice to Canadians.
The same applies to the census records. The national archivist has called them a treasure. The Privacy Commissioner has proposed that they be destroyed. I cannot find the words to express my outrage at the very suggestion that this information that is so valuable to all Canadians should be destroyed at the whim of one person who is supposedly an officer of this House and yet takes it upon himself to instruct the bureaucrats who do actually follow the instructions of the Privacy Commissioner.
We now have a situation with this government, and I am not sure whether it is the political government or the bureaucratic government, where more and more the option is to close down, to shut out, to make private rather than open.
I think this is excellent legislation. I wish Canadians to know that at least the backbench and all sides of the House support the bill absolutely. It should have been votable.