Statistics Act

Marginal note:Prohibition against divulging information

• 17 (1) Except for the purpose of communicating information in accordance with any conditions of an agreement made under section 11 or 12 and except for the purposes of a prosecution under this Act but subject to this section,

  • (a) no person, other than a person employed or deemed to be employed under this Act, and sworn under section 6, shall be permitted to examine any return or identifying information obtained for the purposes of this Act; and

  • (b) no person who has been sworn under section 6 shall disclose or knowingly cause to be disclosed, by any means, any information obtained under this Act in a manner that it is possible from the disclosure to relate the information obtained to any identifiable individual person, business or organization.

• Marginal note:Exception to prohibition

  (2) The Chief Statistician may, by order, authorize the following information to be disclosed:

  • (a) information collected by persons, organizations or departments for their own purposes and communicated to Statistics Canada before or after May 1, 1971, but that information when communicated to Statistics Canada shall be subject to the same secrecy requirements to which it was subject when collected and may only be disclosed by Statistics Canada in the manner and to the extent agreed on by the collector thereof and the Chief Statistician;

  • (b) information relating to a person or organization in respect of which disclosure is consented to in writing by the person or organization concerned;

  • (c) information relating to a business in respect of which disclosure is consented to in writing by the owner for the time being of the business;

  • (d) information available to the public under any statutory or other law;

  • (e) information relating to any hospital, mental institution, library, educational institution, welfare institution or other similar non-commercial institution except particulars arranged in such a manner that it is possible to relate the particulars to any individual patient, inmate or other person in the care of any such institution;

  • (f) information in the form of an index or list of individual establishments, firms or businesses, showing any, some or all of the following in relation to them:

    • (i) their names and addresses,

    • (ii) the telephone numbers at which they may be reached in relation to statistical matters,

    • (iii) the official language in which they prefer to be addressed in relation to statistical matters,

    • (iv) the products they produce, manufacture, process, transport, store, purchase or sell, or the services they provide, in the course of their business, or

    • (v) whether they are within specific ranges of numbers of employees or persons engaged by them or constituting their work force; and

  • (g) information relating to any carrier or public utility.

• Marginal note:Definitions

  (3) In this section,

  carrier

  carrier means any person or association of persons that owns, operates or manages an undertaking that carries or moves persons or commodities by any form of land, sea or air transport; (transporteur)

  public utility

  public utility means any person or association of persons that owns, operates or manages an undertaking

  • (a) for the supply of petroleum or petroleum products by pipeline,

  • (b) for the supply, transmission or distribution of gas, electricity, steam or water,

  • (c) for the collection and disposal of garbage or sewage or for the control of pollution,

  • (d) for the transmission, emission, reception or conveyance of information by any telecommunication system, or

  • (e) for the provision of postal services. (entreprise d’utilité publique)