By Sarah Boesveld
Vancouver-area activist Bert Easterbrook, who earned a police commendation for curbing violence during the Stanley Cup riot in June 2011, has been charged under the Statistics Act for failing to turn in a valid census.
He crumpled up his 2011 census form, burned holes in it and wrote comments in at least four different colours of marker, mocking the questions Statistics Canada asked about his household.
Now, Vancouver-area activist Bert Easterbrook, who earned a police commendation for curbing violence during the Stanley Cup riot in June 2011, has been charged under the Statistics Act for failing to turn in a valid census, something other Canadian protesters have done to express their discontent with the gathering of their data.
Why is it that I have to risk three months in jail because they’re not willing to get off their butts and actually do the paperwork?
The 35-year-old, who has worked as a photographer for Cannabis Culture magazine and is a familiar face among Vancouver activists, says he plans to fight the charge of committing an offence to furnish false, unlawful or incomplete information contrary to section 31B Statistics Act, which carries a maximum $500 fine or, worst-case scenario, three months in jail.
“Considering that all the federal Canadian institutions already have all my pertinent information, why is it that I have to risk three months in jail because they’re not willing to get off their butts and actually do the paperwork themselves?” he told the National Post Wednesday.
Mr. Easterbook also objects to the fact Statistics Canada paid U.S. company Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer, $81-million for “optic recognition” software used to process Canadian census forms — an issue that first galvanized liberal activists during the 2006 census.
He is concerned his personal information will be used by foreign governments for “data mining.”
The New Westminster, B.C. resident deliberately mangled his census questionnaire so it could not be read by Lockheed Martin scanners in the U.S. and a Canadian would have to be paid to decode his responses, he said. Then, he sent it in.
About a month later, Statistics Canada officials arrived at his apartment, asking if he remembered completing the form. He said he did, and refused to complete it properly as they requested. Last Wednesday, he received a summons to appear in a British Columbia court Oct. 2. He plans to attend.
“And even if I do go to jail, I’m just going to laugh. Pretty much I’ll take an extra two weeks of contempt of court if I got to,” he said. “I’ll mock that justice of the peace, I absolutely will.”
For the 2011 Census of Population, Statistics Canada referred 54 cases to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, which decides how to proceed. That is down from 64 cases in 2006, the year news about Lockheed Martin’s involvement in the census circulated widely.
According to its 2011-12 annual report, the prosecutors handled 227 files involving census offences. Sixteen charges were laid against people who refused to answer questions on the 2011 Census of Population.
Saskatoon community activist Sandra Finley is perhaps the highest-profile person charged — she said filling out a census form infringed her right under the Charter of Human Rights & Freedoms to privacy.
A provincial court found her guilty in January 2011 of violating Canada’s census law, a decision that was upheld by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in May.
“Over the history of the census, I don’t think anybody has gone to prison,” said Don Rogers, the Kingston, Ont. based founder of the CountMeOut Project, which encourages “minimum participation” on the census.
“Where there have been convictions, the penalties have ranged anywhere from an absolute discharge to, I think, a $300 fine. We’re not even aware of anyone getting the maximum $500 fine.”
“Why have this threat of jail when it really hasn’t been used?” he asked.
Micheal Vonn, a policy director at the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, asks the same question, though she acknowledges a serious stake in gathering information that will shape governmental decisions.
“Here we are always banging the table for evidence-based policy and decision-making and data’s a key part of that,” she said.
“That said, the notion that we should be putting people in jail if they don’t fill out a form is disproportionate.”
However, she added the charges are “extremely rare.”
Mr. Easterbrook said many of his friends, who also refused to fill out their forms or manipulated them in some way, have not received summons or at least not yet.
As for his turn as a hero, that came when he helped stop rioters from burning a truck.
Then, he had to protect himself as the crowds, who were enraged by the Vancouver Canucks’ loss to the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals, turned on him. The exchange was caught on video and posted on YouTube.
National Post