Are you legally required to provide personal info?

As stated elsewhere, CountMeOut.ca is not advocating outright refusal to provide information; we feel that minimum cooperation can make our point and slow down the Census.

However, we draw your attention to a message received from a viewer, who has critically analyzed the Statistics Act.

The Act makes it an offence to refuse to provide census information, or to provide false information. But our viewer claims that when you read the entire Statistics Act, you are only required to tell the Census how many persons live in your dwelling (and perhaps their names and age), and how many cows are owned by the household! These requirements go back to the early history of the Census in Canada.

So far as all the other questions on the upcoming census, especially on the long form that 1 in 5 Canadians will receive, our viewer is of the opinion that you are not legally required to answer questions of ethnicity, household income, occupation, language, etc. Of course, Statistics Canada tell you that legally, yes, you must answer all these invasive questions.

Now, we are not lawyers, so we do not have an opinion on the above legal interpretation supplied by our viewer. But we find it fascinating.

And regardless, you do have to answer those very few basic questions. You must tell the Census that you exist, and your age. And don't dare lie to the Census about how many cows you own!

And of course, you can even provide that very basic information through the use of minimum cooperation techniques.

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