Do you trust the government’s numbers when it admitted twice this week to major mistakes?
The National Post revealed that Statistics Canada missed 38% of non-citizens in the last census…
enough people to fill the entire city of Halifax.
That means our population data the foundation for housing plans, immigration targets, labour forecasts, and social services was wrong.
The Globe and Mail reported that StatsCan had to revise three years of GDP and productivity data because the original numbers were inaccurate.
This changes the entire economic picture:
• It means the economy may have been running hotter than the Bank of Canada believed
• It means rate cuts just became less likely
• It means productivity may not have been falling but still isn’t growing
• And it means our understanding of growth for three years was based on faulty information
And now economists warn that the recent “GDP surge” wasn’t real strength at all but the result of superficial accounting mechanics like a drop in imports, not rising investment, wages, or output.
This isn’t academic.
These numbers drive the biggest decisions in the country:
• How fast immigration increases
• How many homes we need
• Where public dollars go
• Whether interest rates rise or fall
• Whether businesses invest or flee
When the data is wrong… every policy built on it is wrong.
Canada doesn’t just have a growth problem.
It has a measurement problem.
And until we fix that, we are building the country on guesswork not truth.
And Canadians already know the truth.
They see it every week when they walk into the grocery store.
The numbers may change
Sources: National Post, Globe & Mail, StatsCan, Better Dwelling/Reuters
Be the first to comment