| Act of Parliament |
The Statistics Act (French: Loi sur la statistique) is an Act of the Parliament of Canada passed in 1918 which created the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, now called Statistics Canada since 1971.
The Statistics Act gives Statistics Canada the authority to "collect, compile, analyze, abstract, and publish information on the economic, social and general conditions of the country and its citizens."
To balance Statistics Canada's extensive powers to collect information, the Act establishes the legal requirement for the agency to protect the confidentiality of respondents to Statistics Canada surveys. The legislation makes a formal commitment to respondents that the information they provide will never be released to anyone in a form that will identify them without their authorization.