MP Barlow Exposes Government Data Memory Hole!

#justinflation #inflation #data #statscan #cpi #groceries #johnbarlow
Newsflash! Member of Parliament John Barlow exposes the grocery price CPI Index Stats Can Memory Hole (prices of 52 products wiped out, making it impossible to do year by year historical comparisons) just at a time when inflation is highest.
MP John Barlow (Foothills, AB) asked the pertinent questions in Question Period - House of Commons December 14 2022. He also brought to light the issue in the Agri Committee Meeting of December 5, with witness Sylvain Charlebois, Director, Agri-Food Analytics and Professor, Dalhousie University.

The following was highlighted:
The fact that Statistics Canada changed their format for reporting historical price data. Down the memory hole that data has gone! Normally, you could pinpoint how food prices had changed, comparatively, over the years in order to have a better idea of inflation and costs. Statistics Canada’s historical database showed the average price of fifty-two products sold at Canadian grocery stores going back every year for 25 years. How much was milk in 1999? 2004? This could be known by consulting the database. In mysterious and alarming manner, this 25-year database was removed in May which radically reduced transparency
(“Statistics Canada is Changing How it Monitors Food Prices and ‘It Couldn’t Come at a Worse Time’” by Sylvain Charlebois, Retail Insider).
We know it doesn’t take a database, government bureau or expert to know what consumers know! Shoppers know reality from their wallets, their budgets. and from thousands of shopping trip experiences. They feel the price pain. Each person has a framework of what is expensive or not. Still, that is no excuse for StatsCan not to keep the data that Canadians (and economists, researchers, etc) need to know in this high-inflation period.
Thanks John Barlow for being on the case!