Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you and good morning.

I welcome the opportunity to speak to you about Bill C-625. I'd like to begin by saying that Statistics Canada fully supports the proposed amendment to remove the penalty of imprisonment from the Statistics Act for Canadians who refuse to comply with mandatory data collections.

Under the Statistics Act, all data collections are mandatory by default and refusal to participate in a mandatory collection is subject to the penalty clauses that are addressed by this bill. Since 1982 Statistics Canada has had the authority to declare participation in individual data collections, with the exception of census of population, voluntary for the purposes of the act and refusal to participate gives rise to no penalty at all.

Today, virtually all business surveys, including agricultural surveys, are still collected on a mandatory basis. Household surveys are generally conducted on a voluntary basis and there are two current exceptions. One is the census itself and the other is the labour force survey. While business surveys and the labour force survey are mandatory, and while refusal to participate could result in prosecution, and therefore, penalties, Statistics Canada in my 34 years at the agency has never referred either a business data nor a labour force survey refusal case to the Public Prosecution Service.

The only instance in which Statistics Canada refers cases to the Public Prosecution Service for possible prosecution, therefore bringing individuals into the scope of the penalty sections of the act, is for refusal to participate in the census of population itself. The decision of whether to prosecute is ultimately taken by the Public Prosecution Service.

A long-standing practice of seeking prosecution for census refusal is in recognition of the constitutional importance of the census and its foundational role in the national statistical system. In the last six census cycles, between 18 and 74 refusals have been prosecuted per cycle. The very small number of cases reflects the difficulty of establishing an unambiguous case of refusal. For successful prosecution an individual's name must be determined. They must have refused multiple times. They must be the same person in the household refusing on each occasion. The field staff involved must be able to definitively physically identify the person who refused. The field staff involved must also be able to testify years after the event and the person concerned must have received and failed to respond to a registered letter sent by me advising them of their responsibilities and the risk of prosecution.

Our objective in proposing cases for prosecution is to establish the fact and seriousness of the legal obligation. The agency does not emphasize penalties in its communications or on the census, although the news media reliably report on this aspect of the census during the collection period.

While nothing prevents a judge from applying the jail term provision of the act's penalty clauses on a guilty verdict, this has only occurred once in my 34 years of career at Statistics Canada and in very unusual circumstances. Most judges will typically invite the accused to complete the questionnaire at the beginning of proceedings. If they comply, and two-thirds of people do comply, the charges are normally stayed or withdrawn. If they decline and are found guilty, which occurs about 90% of the cases that go to trial, community service or fines are typical of penalties assigned.

Essentially, the courts have also clearly viewed the imprisonment penalty as unreasonably harsh. Statistics Canada agrees that the jail term penalty is inappropriate and should be removed. I'm aware of no one external to Statistics Canada who is arguing for its retention and we anticipate absolutely no adverse impact on our operations as a result of removing the jail term penalty.

The bill also proposes to amend the Statistics Act to include census-related surveys, such as the national household survey and the provision to release individual census records to Library and Archives Canada 92 years after the information is collected, provided personal consent is obtained. Statistics Canada also supports this amendment.

Census records for individuals are important to genealogical and historical research in Canada. In 2005 it was noted that historical census legislation did not allow for release of individual records for censuses subsequent to the 1901 census because of confidentiality provisions. The Statistics Act was therefore modified to allow for full release to Library and Archives Canada after 92 years for every census taken between 1910 and 2005.

For the 2006 census and subsequent censuses, release after 92 years was only to be allowed with the consent of the respondent. This applied to records from both the short and the long census forms.

In 2011 when the long-form census became voluntary under the name of the national household survey, this change was approved under different dispositions of the Statistics Act and the census, and as a result the individual records could no longer be released, even with consent, after 92 years. Genealogists and historians therefore were at risk of losing an important future resource. Statistics Canada, anticipating that the act would be changed to allow for release, asked respondents in 2011 for consent to provide their information to Library and Archives Canada after 92 years, but we did not have the legislative authority to actually do so.

The proposed amendment will allow Statistics Canada now to provide these 2011 national household survey records, and any similar records from future surveys conducted jointly with the census, to Library and Archives Canada. This recreates Parliament's original intention from 2005. The 2005 amendment to the Statistics Act also provides for an eventual parliamentary review of the outcomes from that amendment to determine if the intended objectives of supporting genealogical and historical research were met.

In summary, Mr. Chair, Statistics Canada fully supports the amendments proposed in Bill C-625.

Thank you.

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