A 79-year-old resident of Toronto, Ontario, has been found guilty of violating the Census Act. It makes filling out personal information, such as mother tongue, sex, etc, mandatory.
Statistics Canada received 13 million completed forms, with 54 people referred for prosecution for failure to complete the census.
This is the second case in just over a year that a citizen has been charged and tried for refusing to fill out the census.
Although the two cases are very similar, the verdicts are not.
This week, Janet Churnin, was found guilty but given a conditional discharge by the judge, who said she tried to balance Churnin’s moral stand with the court’s obligation to deter others from breaking the law. The sentence means Churnin will not have a criminal record after completing a sentence of 50 hours of community service.
Outside the court following the decision Churnin said she did break the law, but added, “I’m glad I managed to get my point across and I do feel sort of satisfied with the decision,”
Churnin who is a self-described pacifist, refused to fill out the 2011 census after learning that the software used by Statistics Canada was developed by US arms supplier Lockheed-Martin.
She and her lawyer also expressed concerns that Canadian statistical information could be accessed by the American firm through a “back door” in the software.
They suggested that under the US Patriot Act the Canadian information could end up in the hands of the US government.
The head of census operations at Statistics Canada testified at Churnin’s trial that Lockheed-Martin had no access to the agency’s data operation centre or its database. although in the very similar case last year, Arcady Genkin, a computer scientist who deals with security issues at the University of Toronto, said back doors can be programmed into software and difficult to detect.
The Crown had countered that Canadians can’t refuse to comply with legitimate government obligations simply on the basis of moral disapproval or speculative security fears
In her ruling, Judge Cathy Mocha sided with the Crown saying, “I appreciate your personal views with regards to peace initiatives, but there are other ways to accomplish those peace initiatives without violating the law”. She added, “The fact that it may be remotely possible for someone to obtain the information doesn’t alter the expectation of privacy here. This danger is present any time any computer is used to store information.”
This week’s decision is markedly different from a similar case last year in which another pacifist, Second World War veteran Audrey Tobias, aged 89, also refused to fill out the 2011 census. She cited similar reasons of protest over a US arms manufacturer’s software being used, and of security concerns.
Tobias was acquitted in that case.
In both cases, lawyers for the women argued that forcing them to complete the census violated their Charter rights of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience.
In both cases the different judges rejected the Charter of Rights and Freedoms arguments, but in the Tobias case Judge Ramez Khawly said Tobias memory and conflicting testimony left doubt as to her intent. He said for a conviction both the act, and intent, must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the Tobias case, the judge also described the Justice Department decision to prosecute Tobias, as a “PR disaster”.
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