OTTAWA - The nightmare scenario of a nosey census taker poring over a neighbour's intimate information might be just that: the stuff of dark fantasy.
Statistics Canada says citizens control who gets to see their census information before it is sent in for processing -- a contrast to the scenario painted by the agency's minister this week.
During a Commons debate Tuesday on reinstating the long-form census, Industry Minister Tony Clement raised the spectre of census takers reading their neighbours' personal data.
"Another census taker said that despite the best efforts of StatsCan, because StatsCan does have a policy on this, some census takers were hired from the same neighbourhood as the responders meaning that your neighbour can know some of your most personal and intimate information," Clement told the Commons.
But according to Statistics Canada, the vast majority of Canadians fills out the census documents online or mails them directly to a processing centre. Enumerators wind up contacting very few households in their own areas.
It's only after three or four weeks that a census enumerator will come and knock on a door to remind someone to send in their forms. Even then, individuals still have the option of filling out the forms and returning them directly to StatsCan.
If someone needs help with the forms, but doesn't like the enumerator who comes to the door, they still have options.
"Any respondent who requires assistance to complete the questionnaire may make arrangements with Statistics Canada to change the enumerator," said StatsCan spokesman Peter Frayne.
"All enumerators are sworn to confidentiality under the Statistics Act."
A spokesman for Clement said Wednesday it's reasonable to think a person might feel uncomfortable if a neighbour asks them to fill out the information or offers to help them fill it out.
"They may send that person away, but it's still someone who has come over to help them that they know," said Erik Waddell, adding that a person might not know they could request someone else.
The issue of enumerators working in their own neighbourhoods was brought before the privacy commissioner 20 years ago. The current system was worked out in concert with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and Statistics Canada.
