During one of our first meetings as a cohort, we met with Paul Laffin and Amanda Colina from Statistics Canada, the national independent statistical agency of Canada. They provided us an overview of the work that Statistics Canada does and discussed the role it plays in telling Canada’s story through numbers. We learnt about three types of data and their functions: micro-data, aggregated data tables, and interactive data. They also taught us about the guiding principles of the agency, such as that data should be disaggregated at the lowest level of population detail while respecting quality and confidentiality, intersectionality, and making data available at the lowest level of geography possible. They also stressed the importance of data literacy—making sure Canadians understand the data published, have the knowledge and skills, and the ability to assess the quality of data, protect and secure data ethically. They shared a memorable quote with us from Teresa Scassa (Former Chairperson of the Canadian Statistics Advisory Council), who stated: “Quality data informs good decision-making and helps us better understand our country and the challenges we face.” Thank you, Amanda and Paul, for providing us an insightful overview ofStatistics Canada.
Paul has been a huge supporter of OLIP, and has been delivering specialized sessions to interns for many years. We wish him all the best as he transitions to his new role, and we look forward to holding more sessions with Amanda, to learn about data collection more in depth as it pertains to different fields!
