Eric Stone, 48, said he opened the door Thursday to an Ontario Provincial Police officer, who politely informed him he was being arrested for failing to fill out the 2011 short-form census.
OTTAWA — A dyslexic Pembroke man is outraged that he’s been charged under the federal census law for failing to fill out a form that he can’t read.
Eric Stone, 48, said he opened the door Thursday to an Ontario Provincial Police officer, who politely informed him he was being arrested for failing to fill out the 2011 short-form census.
His wife, Kerry O’Neill, who suffers from a serious learning disability, also was charged.
“It floored me: I was really shocked,” said Stone, who must appear in provincial court on Tuesday.
Stone’s court summons says he has been charged under the Statistics Act with “refusing or neglecting to fill out the 2011 census form.”
The maximum penalty for violating the law is three months in jail and a $500 fine.
Stone is a former truck driver who is on a disability pension because of his schizophrenia. He said he has never read well enough to fill out a census form and doesn’t understand why he’s been targeted for prosecution this time.
“I have never filled one out in my whole life. Never. And nothing has ever come of it.”
He takes his bills to the bank to have them paid, he noted, because his reading is so poor. Stone plans to tell the judge as much on Tuesday.
“I would like the judge to understand the situation with me and my wife and that this charge is ludicrous,” said Stone.
Peter Frayne, a spokesman for Statistics Canada, said that in 2011, the vast majority of Canadians returned completed census questionnaires, but a small number “refused to comply with the law.”
Statistics Canada, he said, makes every effort to ensure that an individual has had several opportunities to complete the questionnaire before a case is referred to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.
The prosecution service, he said, determines if a case will result in charges being laid. In many instances, Frayne noted, those cases will be stayed if the individual subsequently completes a census form.
Statistics Canada referred 54 refusal cases from the 2011 census to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.
In 2006, 64 cases were referred; in 2001, there were 52 cases.
Two years ago, the Conservative government scrapped the mandatory long-form census and replaced it with a voluntary household survey.
The short census, however, remains mandatory under the law.
Statistics Canada conducts a census every five years.
In 2011, 98.1 per cent of Canadian households filled out the mandatory short-form census, according to a Statistics Canada report in August 2011. The voluntary National Household Survey, which replaced the long-form census, was filled out by 69.3 per cent of those who received one.
In 2006, the mandatory long-form census was filled out by 94 per cent of Canadian households.