AMA with Statistics Canada on November 19. Stay tuned! / DMNQ avec Statistique Canada le 19 novembre. Restez à l’affût!

audreyl

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Hey Reddit! On Thursday, November 19, 2020, from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (ET), Statistics Canada will be hosting an AMA event on r/PersonalFinanceCanada to discuss the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI is one of the most widely used measures of inflation, and it tracks the average change in retail prices encountered by all consumers in Canada.

How has Canadian consumer spending shifted under the pressures of the pandemic? How much does the average Canadian household spend on key items like food, shelter, household operations, transportation, health and personal care, recreation, alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, and more? Mark your calendars and come chat with our CPI data experts to find out!

[We are Canada’s national statistical agency. We are here to engage with Canadians and provide them with high-quality statistical information that matters!]

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Salut Reddit! Le jeudi 19 novembre 2020, de 13 h 30 à 14 h 30 (HE), Statistique Canada organisera une séance DMNQ sur r/PersonalFinanceCanada pour discuter de l’Indice des prix à la consommation (IPC). L’IPC est l’une des mesures de l’inflation les plus couramment utilisées, et il permet de mesurer la variation moyenne des prix de détail que connaissent les consommateurs au Canada.

De quelle façon les dépenses des consommateurs canadiens ont-elles évolué sous la pression de la pandémie? Combien d’argent le ménage canadien moyen dépense-t-il pour des articles clés, comme les aliments, le logement, les dépenses courantes, le transport, les soins de santé et les soins personnels, les loisirs, les boissons alcoolisées, les produits du tabac et plus? Inscrivez cet événement à votre calendrier et venez clavarder avec nos experts en données de l’IPC!

[Nous sommes l’organisme national de statistique du Canada. Nous sommes ici pour discuter avec les Canadiens et leur fournir des renseignements statistiques de grande qualité qui comptent!]
 
@audreyl I just wanted to say I think it’s really awesome to see a branch of federal government trying to reach out and touch base people on here from time to time.

I think if every branch did something similar, we would be far better off.
 
@remysheppard Hello - thank you for your nice comment! We are always happy to engage with Redditors, and we are looking forward to doing so during our upcoming AMA event! :)
 
@audreyl I would like to echo @remysheppard's comment. I work for the federal government and have seen your posts over the last years, they're always so informative and well crafted. You make us proud and we are lucky to have you.
 
@tytere There is someone at StatsCan who speaks with the minister's office on a daily basis about communications issues and I would bet next month's salary this initiative was discussed at that level.
 
@tytere True, but considering Harper foisted deep furloughs onto the public service I doubt that was very conducive to any kind of expansion in the external communications mandate of an agency like Statscan. Keep in mind in that situation these kinds of functions are the first to get axed.
 
@tytere His government was notorious for muzzling scientists and decreasing access to data by shutting down the long form census. I don't think Statscan would have gotten away with this back then.
 
@audreyl Not sure if you'll check before the AMA, but I'll post a Q now to give you time to research:

How do we know CPI is the right measure of inflation? Does Stats Canada track (if not publish) other inflation measures?

More thoughts follow, but that's the main question.

Back on the Rational Reminder podcast, Dan Coletti from the BoC said: "One thing we've learned so far is that perceived inflation in Canada is generally above the actual CPI rate." Which raises an important is our perception wrong, or is the CPI wrong?

And also, what is the CPI for different income quartiles/deciles? E.g. The price of luxury goods declining doesn't really help lower and middle income Canadians facing food and daycare inflation.

Should an inflation measure be a simple (weighted) average of a basket of goods, or weighted by the pain of inflation/level of "discrionaryness" in different components? (e.g., should we worry more about food and rent inflation than alcohol and plane tickets?)

Stats Canada did an analysis in the 90's about inflation affecting different income levels. I haven't seen an updated version of that, and was wondering if that data was available somewhere, or if we could request Stats Canada do an updated version of that analysis.
 
@middlemind You raise an important point. I agree that the inflation that I perceive (for example at the grocery) seems to be much higher than official inflation. For many people, the only thing growing slower than CPI is their salaries.

The way that we measure inflation matters a lot because very important policy decisions (like the interest rate) are based upon official inflation (CPI). If official inflation is much lower than actual inflation, nothing will be done to slow down inflation, and quite the opposite, the government will make efforts to stimulate inflation back to official target (2%/year if I remember well). So accurately measuring inflation matters because the government's perception of inflation has a major impact on their decisions which do impact the actual inflation.

Young people like us on reddit have never seen an inflation crisis like the 1970s or 1980s. The government should make additional efforts to keep actual inflation at low level and prevent that.
 
@middlemind Hello HolyPotato,

That is a great question! Please make sure to reiterate your question at our event, our experts will be happy to provide a response!
 
@audreyl This is awesome! My situation has luckily been pretty stable but unfortunately my spending hasn't gone down so I'm curious to see what has happened with others. It seems like most people are in the same boat as me, but some people has lost housing and others are saving bucketloads of money (darn you extroverts who spend money at bars - I am not you and save nothing!).
 
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