Mr. Speaker, I listened quite closely to the member for Winnipeg Centre, as I always do when he is speaking in the House. I was glad to hear how he finished off his comments, because for quite a while I was not really sure if he was willing to support this legislation or not.
I understand the member's longstanding debate about the Senate, but I take some slight exception to that. Legislation coming from the Senate is certainly worthy of debate in this place. It is not the Senate's fault that it sends legislation to us; it is the government's fault. This legislation should have been tabled a long time ago. I would like a little more explanation of that.
I would like to give the hon. member an example. Let us look at the 1831 census in Nova Scotia and the Church map. Mr. Church, who actually did the census and drew the maps of the area at the same time, would hire an individual, quite often a young child who knew the neighbourhood and knew all the individuals. They would go by horse and wagon in those days and actually name off all the individual houses, draw them on the map and put down their census information. That has been a great source of information for genealogists in Nova Scotia and of course for the rest of the country as well.
But why on earth would we worry about the 1911 census or the 1901 census? What information is in there? What difference is it going to make 100 years after the fact for someone to be able to look up their personal family information, how many children were in the family and what the resources were?
I realize the census is more complicated today and there is a bit more information, but once we are dead and gone it really is not going to make that much difference to us, so surely we can amend this legislation. Surely we can support it. I agree with the fact that the government has not done its job, but it does not mean that this information should not be passed.