Sentence for census defiance

For the second time in just over a year an elderly woman was taken to court over her refusal to fill out the mandatory census in 2011.

79-year old Janet Churnin has been found guilty of violating the Statistics Act. The judge disagreed with Churnin’s arguments that her charter rights were violated. Her lawyer argued that the government didn’t do enough to address her concerns about U.S. arms-maker Lockheed Martin’s role in the data collection process. She will have no permanent criminal record after she completes 50 hours of community service, but she is on probation until then: “I do feel sort of satisfied with the decision I did break the law but I think I had every reason to. And I suppose she is right there are always consequences to your actions.”

Last year, a Toronto judge acquitted an 89-year old peace activist, charged after she also refused to fill out the 2011 census. Audrey Tobias says she didn’t file her census, for the same reason, because it’s processed using software from U.S. military contractor Lockheed Martin. The defence maintained that forcing her to complete the census would violate her freedoms of conscience and free expression. But the Crown said Tobias had no lawful excuse for her refusal, which led to the charge against her under the Statistics Act.

In 2011, Statistics Canada received 13 million completed census forms, a 98 per cent response rate. Overall, it referred 54 people for prosecution for failing to complete the mandatory census form.

Back to Churnin’s case. The senior says she has no regrets and thought the judge was going to be a lot harder on her and that she already does volunteer work, so it’s no hardship to do community service.