Taxpayers and the Census

My union was among many organizations listed in opposition to the senseless census decision in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail editorial. Three organizations were listed as supporting it. The Fraser Institute and National Citizens’ Coalition have understandable motives for wanting to eliminate the mandatory long form. First, there are libertarian “privacy” concerns. Second, depriving the government of reliable census data would […]

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Race and Earnings and the Census

I’ve blogged previously on this topic but it is worth revisiting in light of the Census debate.  The gold standard for looking at racial pay gaps is analysis of differences in earnings between Canadian born whites and visible minorities since this excludes differences between immigrants and non immigrants (most importantly country of education and work experience.) This is really only […]

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Employment Insurance and the Recovery

While the Canadian economy has begun to recover from the “Great Recession” in terms of the level of GDP and overall job growth, unemployment and under-employment still remain well above pre-recession levels. The national unemployment rate in June 2010 was 7.9%, well up from 6.0% two years earlier. The number of unemployed workers was, at 1,475,000, still more than 300,000 […]

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We Don’t Need No Education

James Altucher posted an interesting article and video making the case against sending your children to university. I commend him for questioning the credo that everyone should go to university, regardless of interest or aptitude. But I am not totally convinced by his analysis. Altucher gives short shrift to the fact that many good jobs require a university degree, even […]

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Who We Are, Data Libre and Census Watch

A superb article in the Toronto Star by Antonia Zerbisias, entitled “Who Are You”, today features a fascinating interview with Dr Jan Kestle at Environics Analytics regarding their use of census data. In the print edition it has a data geek’s centrefold! Two pages of how census data is used to profile 66 different household/lifestyle types that Environics claims typifies […]

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