Tag Archives: Statistics Canada

Roundup: The GDP data and the “collapsing” economy

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Yesterday was the day that Statistics Canada released the quarterly GDP figures, and they were middling. The economy is sluggish, but 1.0% annualized growth in the quarter is growth, and it bears repeating that we have avoided a recession after the inflationary spike, so this is the “soft landing” that the Bank of Canada was aiming for. And because growth is sluggish, there is plenty of talk that the Bank will likely make another 50 basis point cut in December rather than 25.

The Conservatives rushed to make hay of these numbers, particularly the fact that per capita GDP fell by 0.4% over the quarter, which was the sixth quarterly decline. (Yes, there was revised data that pushed up growth and made the quarterly decline less pronounced for the past two years). And why has there been a decline in per capita GDP? Because at the end of the lockdowns, we ramped up immigration to combat labour shortages, and all of those new workers pushed up our growth enough to avoid a recession, and because the denominator has been increased faster than the numerator, it’s a pretty solid indication that the growth could very well be much stronger once we get it back on track. To that end, the Conservatives’ press release compared our non-annualised figures to the American annualised numbers to make ours look worse (they later issued a correction), and put out misleading tweets that blame Trudeau and not the 2014 collapse in oil prices for the so-called “economic vandalism” that they believe that simple line graphs show.

https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1862538994221031782

And then there was the absolute mendacity in Question Period. Michael Chong said that the estimated effect of Trump tariffs was less than what Trudeau has done (which is both false and stupid), and Corey Torchor, unbelievably, claimed that the StatsCan data showed that the economy was “collapsing,” and I wish I was making that up. In no way did any of that data indicate that there was anything resembling “collapse.” Sluggish, yes. Collapsing? How? Either the Conservatives are just outright lying with statistics, or they have no clue how to read GDP data (or maybe both). And the funny thing is that all of this concern about declining per capita GDP is a pretty de facto way of saying that they are cheering for an actual recession, which we would have had if we hadn’t juiced immigration the way we did. I wish this wasn’t so stupid, and I wish we had more journalists calling this out, but we don’t because “I was told there would be no math.”

This is incredibly mendacious framing.GDP per capita largely declined because of the influx of immigration, which staved off an actual recession. Saying that Trump tariffs would do less damage than the current government is both stupid and wrong.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-11-29T21:15:09.167Z

Tochor claims that StatsCan reported that our economy is “collapsing.”Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. He doesn’t know how to read GDP data and is going to just lie. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-11-29T16:37:05.538Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drone attacks hit residential buildings in Kyiv and Odesa, injuring eight. Ukrainian forces are facing a desertion crisis because of overstretched forces, psychological scarring, and the management of the war. Ukraine’s army chief is pledging more troops on the eastern front after visiting there. Here is a look at Ukrainians dismantling a thermal power plant before the Russians can advance on it.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1862448598702596345

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Roundup: Grossly distorting crime stats

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Pierre Poilievre has been putting out a series of charts lately to “prove” that the Justin Trudeau-led government has been an apocalyptic disaster for the country, and one of them has bene around violent crime statistics. But because this is Poilievre, he takes those statistics and distorts them to create a monstrous picture that doesn’t actually reflect reality, as Amarnath Amarasingam explains:

This is classic Poilievre, incidentally. He has made a career out of cherry-picking a single data point, then building a massive, misleading narrative around it and when you call him on the lie, he insists that that data came from Statistics Canada, or the PBO, or wherever. In other words, he tries to use their legitimacy to launder his disinformation, and provide him with intellectual cover when clearly he either did not understand what the data was, or he simply took the information and constructed a false narrative (and I have my particular suspicion about which one it is). What is even more dangerous about these kinds of distortions is that they are being mixed with a big dose of racism among Poilievre’s online base, who are blaming immigrants for this supposed “spike” in crime (which is not a spike), and this could lead to some very bad outcomes.

For another example, we have the real household income figures from 2022, which he has also utterly distorted because of course he has. And has any legacy media outlet called any of this out? Of course not. Meanwhile, this has never been about logic or facts, or reasoned arguments—it’s about lies that make people angry so that they vote emotionally, which he thinks will benefit him (and that those lies won’t blow up in his face when he can’t deliver on his false promises). Depending on lies is a very bad strategy in the medium-to-long term, but here we are, swimming in them.

Ukraine Dispatch

Even though Ukrainian forces shot down three missiles and 25 out of 26 drones, an energy facility in the Sumy region was hit, and fire broke out. A fourteen-year-old died when a Russian struck near a playground in Zaporizhzhia. Russia has been making an aggressive push in the east, claiming the towns of Zalizne and Niu-York. Ukraine is reported to have launched a drone attack on Moscow with at least ten drones, while a diesel depot on the Rostov region was set on firefrom a Ukrainian drone strike. Russian forces have confirmed that Ukrainian forces have damaged or destroyed all three bridges over the Seym River, which could trap Russian units caught between the river, the Ukrainian advance, and the Ukrainian border.

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Roundup: Some interesting bits from the jobs data

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The December job numbers were released yesterday by StatsCan, and they’re a little funny in that they show that a mere net 100 jobs were created, but that’s really just statistical noise, given the margin of error. And while a bit of hay was made over that, there were a couple of interesting things to delve into in the data.

One of those is that wages continue to be up—way up. Average hourly wages for permanent employees was up 5.7% year-over-year, which is a little crazy when inflation is running around three percent. While high wage growth in the short term can be good to help restore lost purchasing power after last year’s bout of high inflation, if it carries on for too long, it runs the danger of being part of the inflation problem, because prices will need to rise to pay for those salaries, which becomes more inflation, and can turn into a wage-price spiral. (That’s why governments have historically imposed wage and price controls, to try and ensure that they remain on an even playing field to stabilise prices). Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem says that if wages keep rising above four percent, that is going to be a problem for taming inflation so that rates can come down.

The other noteworthy issue is that gig work—things like Uber drivers or food delivery services—continues to grow, rising 46 percent over 2023, and that new Canadians are overrepresented in that labour pool. That should also be concerning considering how exploitative those industries can be, and shows that businesses are relying on this immigrant labour to drive down wages, and devalue the labour of those workers.

Ukraine Dispatch:

While continuing to shoot down as many Russian missiles (made in North Korea) and drones as possible, Ukraine is continuing its drone strikes on military targets in occupied Crimea and the Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, in a bid to unsettle the population in advance of the country’s election.

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Roundup: Poilievre tries out new tough-on-crime disinformation

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As evidenced in Question Period yesterday, the Conservatives have found a new lie to suit their narrative around the transfer of Paul Bernardo, and it’s citing the former Bill C-83, which allegedly eliminated solitary confinement in Canadian prisons on favour of “structured intervention units.” We can pretty much be assured that the legislation did not do what it said it would, and “structured intervention” is largely still solitary confinement, and the actual problems haven’t been solved, but the underlying notion here was that this bill was in response to the finding of the courts and international human rights bodies that solitary confinement is a violation of human rights. Nevertheless, this is being blamed for the conditions that allowed for Bernardo’s transfer, which again, is not true. It’s not the first time they’ve done this tactic—they also did it with the former Bill C-75 on bail reform, which was about codifying Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence around bail, and actually created several more categories where a reverse onus was needed, which made bail tougher to get. That didn’t stop the lies then, and it isn’t around C-83 now.

In the meantime, here is the Alberta Prison Justice Society with some important context around prison transfers and security classifications, which a lot of people should know (and in some cases, do know but are lying about it in order to drum up outrage, because politics is all about rage-farming and shitposting these days).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians struck the settlement of Novoberyslav in the Kherson region, killing a married couple when their house was bombed. The Ukrainian advance continues in the south, while Russians are trying to trying to dislodge Ukrainian positions in the east. Meanwhile, a group of African leaders are visiting Kyiv to discuss Ukraine’s “peace formula” to end the war.

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Roundup: A rare Harper appearance

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Former prime minister Stephen Harper was recently at a Fraser Institute event in Vancouver, where he said that Chinese foreign interference is probably “far worse than we think,” and is calling for an end to what he calls “naïve globalism,” which is a pretty loaded term. On the former, one has to ask just what exactly Harper did about said foreign interference when he was prime minister, because all indications are that it was probably close to zero, as he weakened oversight over national security and intelligence agencies and put no electoral safeguards in place (as he was trying to make it harder for groups like students to vote), while he went over to Beijing to grovel before Xi Jinping for the sake of opening up trade after his earlier tough-guy stance on China wasn’t getting him anywhere. And hey, he got a panda out of it (for a little while, anyway).

On the latter, this whole “globalism” thing is pretty cringey because that’s frequently code-word for “the Jews,” and falls into a number of antisemitic conspiracy theories. Harper was a big fan of the whole “somewheres” versus “rootless cosmopolitans” view of the world, but again, the “rootless cosmopolitans” also falls into those same antisemitic tropes. This fear over “globalism” or “globalists” is pretty big in far-right circles, and Harper is using those same dog whistles.

I would also point out that in the same speech, he mentioned that his activist investment fund is located in Florida because “Florida is booming,” citing its “low taxes, low regulation, lots of spending on police and falling rates of crime.” Again, red flags because Florida is also engaging in fascistic behaviour, targeting minorities and most especially the LGBTQ+ communities, and it’s particularly alarming that he’s glossing over this while offering praise to Pierre Poilievre and Danielle Smith, who has also been praising Ron DeSantis as part of her campaign. (And no, the IDU is not a fascist organization, and Harper is not some Bond villain, so don’t even think about commenting on that, because I have zero patience for it).

Ukraine Dispatch:

On the anniversary of Kyiv’s founding, Russia launched its largest air assault yet on the city, with 58 out of 59 drones being shot down, the debris causing some damage including to an institute for the blind. Meanwhile, Russian attacks have eased in and around Bakhmut, possibly because of the Wagner Group handover.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1662337489334419458

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QP: One last kick at the can for 2022

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It was the final Question Period of 2022, and not a moment too soon. After we got the traditional recitation of the Xmas Poem as read by Anthony Housefather (some of whose rhymes were a bit more tortured than in years previous), things got underway.

Pierre Poilievre led off in French, raising a statistic about the rising cost of Christmas dinners, and wedged in a lurid tale of people threatening to access MAiD rather than living in grinding poverty (which ignores that that is not a criteria). Justin Trudeau said that he would like to join in and wish people happy holidays, but knows that it can be difficult because of global inflation, which is why they have created support programmes for those who need it, including with dental care and childcare. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his same points, but trying to tie poverty to government waste. Trudeau noted that Canadians step up for each other, and listed his government’s actions again. Poilievre again tried to tie supposed government waste to inflation, and Trudeau deployed his well-worn talking points about the government making the decision to help Canadians when they needed it and it resulted in the economy roaring back faster than our comparator countries. Poilievre demanded to know when the “waste” identified by the Auditor General would be paid back, but Trudeau mentioned this week’s by-election in his paean about his government supporting Canadians. Poilievre could not end the year without deploying a “triple, triple, triple” ear worm in worrying about heating bills, and Trudeau noted that the federal carbon price doesn’t kick in over in Atlantic Canada until the spring, so Poilievre was trafficking in misinformation. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and tried to intimate that the premiers wanted to meet with him “like a family dinner,” and Trudeau noted that he has met with premiers more than any of his predecessors, noted that he was meeting with François Legault in a few days, but he was there to work with provinces to solve the healthcare crisis. Blanchet torture the family dinner even more, and Trudeau noted that the system as it exists isn’t working, which is why he was there to invest more, but it would take more than just throwing money. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and asked a very selective reading of the health-related promises from the election, and wondered where the action was. Trudeau noted that they were working toward rewards and outcomes with provinces. Singh declared that when he as prime minster, he would keep his promises (to much laughter), and demanded to know what happened to the promised $25/hour wage for long-term care workers, and Trudeau repeated that the federal government is there to step up, and that they would work with provinces to raise those wages.

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Roundup: Independent thought alarm, Iran edition

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I hear the independent thought alarm sounding as Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi, who is Iranian-Canadian, is being critical of the government’s response when it comes to sanctions on the Iranian regime, and he wants them to do more. This being said, he has stressed that the minister, Mélanie Joly, has been very receptive to talking to him about the situation, and hearing his ideas, but that wasn’t of any interest to the CBC. No, they were interested in the narrative that even Liberal MPs aren’t happy with the government’s moves to date on sanctioning the Iranian regime, and lo, they put on an “expert” who says the government should do more, in spite of the fact that the don’t have the actual capacity to enforce more sanctions, let alone monitor the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

I don’t expect the party to come down on Ehsassi for this, and the Liberals have demonstrated that they are willing to put up with a certain degree of independence from their MPs (more so than pretty much any other party right now), but I always find the reaction of the media interesting in situations like this, because as much as they claim they want more independence for MPs, when it gets demonstrated, they immediately start acting like this is either an attack on the government/prime minister, and they try to wedge it as much as possible to make it sound exciting. But all this really does is crack the whip without the party Whip ever needing to do a thing, because the media is enforcing discipline more than he ever could. Some members of the media should probably reflect on that fact

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 222:

Ukrainian forces have made a major breakthrough in the south, advancing along the Dnipro River and threatening Russian supply lines in the region. In the northeast, the liberation of Lyman is providing a staging ground to press into the Donbas region.

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Roundup: Bike rally goes nowhere fast

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It is now around day sixty-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a UN convoy has managed to evacuate some of the civilians who have been trapped under that steel plant in Mariupol, which is promising news, but we’ll see how long these humanitarian corridors can remain in place. Wives of some of the Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol are also calling for the soldiers to be evacuated as well.

Also, this weekend was the fact that we learned that US Speaker Nancy Pelosi also visited Kyiv unannounced, and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which is turning into quite a convoy of American officials, and that in turn is turning into some bellyaching about why we haven’t seen any Canadian officials there. Which is a bit ridiculous, and would seem to me to play into the notion that this particular government is all about photo ops, and what more would a trip to Kyiv be at this particular point?

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1520680217177726977

Closer to home, that “bike rally” was largely a non-event outside of a few blocks, though things did get a bit testy at times over the weekend, with police taking no bullshit and arresting several of the protesters, some of whom were found to be violating their bail conditions after they were arrested during the occupation a few months ago. It’s kind of amazing what can happen when the police do their jobs and don’t let an occupation get entrenched because they either were sympathetic, or didn’t believe the occupiers when they clearly stated that their goal was an occupation. With any luck, this could dampen the enthusiasm for any future such “protests,” though I worry that we may not be so lucky.

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Roundup: Dubious procedural moves and political theatre

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We are now on or about day sixty-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the big news is that Russia is cutting off natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria, ostensibly because they refuse to pay in rubles as Russia demands. The real reason is, of course, blackmail over support for Ukraine, as well as an attempt to divide Europe, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

Closer to home, there is some procedural bullshit going down, and I’m unimpressed. The government has put forward an omnibus motion that would give them the power to start implementing late-night sittings right away, rather than in the few weeks before the break, and even more curious is the notion that they would give ministers the ability to adjourn the Commons for the summer with no notice, and a simple vote call. The late-night sittings—with the added language that those sittings can’t be obstructed with dilatory motions—makes a certain amount of sense in that the procedural warfare that plagued them last year has made a comeback, and they haven’t even managed to pass the budget implementation bill from December, which is not good. This is in a sense make-up time for all of the time wasted on dilatory motions—actions have consequences. But that ability for a minister to pull the plug for summer at any point really sticks in my craw, and I’m not mollified by Mark Holland insisting that this is only intended for use during the final week. It feels to me a lot like the ability to give themselves a nuclear option to hold over the other parties, including the NDP, if they don’t want to play ball in getting bills through. If Holland really wants this only for the final week, the motion should be drafted to say so.

At the same time, Holland also announced that they were going to move ahead with creating a special security-cleared committee for those Winnipeg Lab documents, whether or not the Conservatives agree to join in. But…this feels like theatre at this point, because the Conservatives stopped boycotting NSICOP, and that’s exactly the kind of thing that committee exists to deal with. And the government already turned over the unredacted documents to NSICOP, so what really is the point here? Aside from political theatre? Why can’t we have grown-ups in charge?

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Roundup: The inflation stats and what’s behind them

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Rounding out the big economic week was the Consumer Price Index report yesterday (made all the more difficult because Statistics Canada’s website is largely offline as they seal the cyber-vulnerability identified on Friday). The top line figure is that inflation remains at 4.7 percent for a second month in a row, meaning that it hasn’t accelerated into the much higher territory that places like the US are sitting at, and several of the price indicators were flat, which could mean that some prices are starting to stabilise. But it’s still early days, though when you drill down into the numbers, there are really three things that are driving inflation: gasoline, housing costs, and meat.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1471125492568838152

To be clear, as noted by StatsCan:

  • Oil production continues to remain below pre-pandemic levels though global demand has increased
  • Prices for fresh or frozen beef increased 15.4% year over year in November. Poor crop yields resulting from unfavourable weather conditions have made it more expensive for farmers to feed their livestock, in turn raising prices for consumers

https://twitter.com/stephen_tapp/status/1471120984702922757

So what is the takeaway here? That these are issues that the federal government has very little control over, and that the Bank of Canada raising interest rates won’t tackle either. And yet, we keep hearing demands for “concrete action” from the federal government on this, as though they could wave a want to fix it. Or if not a magic wand, then wage and price controls? Do we need to bring “Zap, you’re frozen!” out of retirement?

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