Eh Sayers

Canada is facing both a climate crisis and a housing crisis, and they are interconnected.  Choices we make about our homes impact the environment: their location and how much we need to use a car to get around, the heat source that they use, the materials used in their construction.  At the same time, the climate impacts our homes: when severe weather strikes and causes damage to our homes, we hav...

It used to be that Statistics Canada didn’t measure poverty. Not exactly. Poverty is complex, and there wasn't a single definition that everyone agreed on. So while StatCan did measure low income and other income inequality indicators, it didn't measure poverty per se. That is, until 2018, when the government chose to use the Market Basket Measure, or MBM, as Canada's Official Poverty Line. That m...

If this is the first time you’re hearing about Sylvia Ostry, buckle up.  Sylvia was appointed Canada’s first and only female Chief Statistician in 1972, but she didn’t get there by playing by the rules. She was ambitious but grew up in a world where many thought that it was shameful to be female and have a career.    Sylvia was a Jewish woman in economics, and even after she earned a Ph. D. from t...

As the effects of the pandemic continue into its second year, we have all had to make adjustments with the way we go about our daily lives.  We have seen plenty of service disruptions, closures of services and delays due to semiconductor scarcities, inclement weather or shifts in supply and demand. But what is the real cause of these disruptions and what is the supply chain that everyone is talkin...

Healthcare is a privilege that Canadians value greatly. However, virtual healthcare was a rarity before COVID-19. Immediately after the pandemic hit in March 2020, Canadians were forced to rethink how they access healthcare. Appointments that would usually have happened in an office were suddenly taking place by phone or video chat. Now, two years later, most health care is conducted virtually. Th...

Canada’s diversity and rich cultural heritage have been shaped by the people who have come from all over the world to call it home. But even in our multicultural society, eliminating all forms of discrimination remains a challenge. In this episode, we turn a critical eye to the ways that cognitive bias risks perpetuating systemic racism. Statistics are supposed to accurately reflect the world arou...

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The COVID-19 pandemic has had an undeniable impact on the way that we spend money. Documenting these shifts in spending patterns is crucial to decision making and providing Canadians with timely and accurate information on consumer price changes. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the most widely used indicator of consumer price change and inflation in Canada. Our guest, Taylor Mitchell, an economi...

The last episode of Season 1 of Eh Sayers focusses on the growing market of gigs and their place in an ever-changing landscape of job flexibility and/or instability. What are the socio-economic benefits and drawbacks of a gig worker and how are they affected by COVID-19? As more people work remotely and the workday structure changes due to the pandemic, how will the Canadian economy reflect these...

The age old practice of working with one’s hands in skill and time honoured endeavors has seen a resurgence during the pandemic as people seek out ways of keeping busy, exploring a fleeting interest or honing their skills on a professional level. But there’s much more to it, according to Maegen Black, director of the Canadian Crafts Federation. We discuss the arts and crafts movement across Canada...

The pandemic presented a long list of threats to the mental and physical well-being of children, parents and educators across the nation. To move towards the end of the pandemic and a return to normalcy, difficult choices such as closing schools had to be made by policy-makers. With our guest Dr. Kelley Zwicker, a pediatric doctor at CHEO, we discuss the potential short- and long-term effects of t...

This first episode of Eh Sayers is a heart-felt discussion on disability in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. With our two guests Tony Labillois, the director of Public Sector Statistics and Champion for Persons with Disabilities at Statistics Canada, and Michelle Maroto, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta, we discussed the realities of people living with disabilitie...