DECISION FROM SASK COURT OF APPEAL IN MY TRIAL – LOCKHEED MARTIN AND THE CENSUS, PRIVACY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal upheld the lower courts’ view that we do not have a Charter Right to privacy of personal information in the face of StatsCan’s appetite for the collection of personal data on individual citizens.
I have spoken with my lawyer. There are grounds – we will seek leave to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Newspaper report follows. I will post more information as soon as I have time.
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Appeal+court+shuts+down+anti+census+crusader/8379262/story.html
By Jonathan Charlton
A Saskatoon activist has lost a bid to have the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal overturn her conviction for failing to comply with the 2006 census.
Sandra Finley says she may decide to take her fight to the Supreme Court of Canada after she meets with her lawyer this week.
“I view it that I don’t have a choice in the matter. I think the issue of whether we have privacy of personal information is a critical issue in a democracy,” Finley said in an interview.
“So absolutely, if there are grounds for appeal, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decision has to be challenged.”
Finley, then 61, refused to complete the formerly-mandatory long form census in 2006 as a protest against the federal government conducting business with a Canadian subsidiary of U.S. defence contractor Lockheed Martin.
She was found guilty in provincial court of not filling out the census, but was granted an absolute discharge, which allowed her to avoid any penalty or criminal record.
Nevertheless, Finley appealed the conviction to the Court of Queen’s Bench in 2011.
After that appeal was dismissed, she took her case to the province’s highest court, where she argued that the Queen’s Bench judge had erred in failing to consider whether she had a lawful excuse under the Statistics Act, by concluding that the census form had to be completed to constitute a breach of privacy, and by concluding that under statutes like the act, an individual may be compelled to answer and not receive protection under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In a written decision, Justice Georgina Jackson said the Court of Appeal was not swayed.
“Ms. Finley’s arguments do not lead me to conclude that the summary conviction appeal court judge erred when he found no error of law in relation to the trial judge’s conclusion that Ms. Finley did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy so as to sustain a Charter breach,” Jackson wrote.
“With regulatory statues, like the Statistics Act, a person’s reasonable expectations of privacy are considered to be lower than in other contexts.”
Finley disagrees. She says the Charter of Rights of Freedoms precludes the government from forcing people to disclose a “biographical core” of personal informations.
“I think you have to know what the history of detailed files on citizens is in any country. A country that starts to develop detailed files on citizens becomes fascist, militaristic,” Finley said.
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