Feds Eliminate Food Inflation Data
The Government of Canada has permanently removed tracking a significant amount of food inflation data, making it impossible to track grocery food inflation increases.
Canadians are facing significant inflation as a result of the Federal Government's monetary policies. Inflation makes inflation, and knowing real inflation numbers will force the Federal Government to pay more for inflation indexed income payments for Canadians.
The Government's solution to rapid inflation? Eliminate much of the data. Most of the media will ignore it.
"Why is StatsCan quietly deleting its food inflation database?"
Sunday, March 27, 2022
https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-s ... -1106-.htm
Canadians are facing significant inflation as a result of the Federal Government's monetary policies. Inflation makes inflation, and knowing real inflation numbers will force the Federal Government to pay more for inflation indexed income payments for Canadians.
The Government's solution to rapid inflation? Eliminate much of the data. Most of the media will ignore it.
"Why is StatsCan quietly deleting its food inflation database?"
Sunday, March 27, 2022
https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-s ... -1106-.htm
Over the next few weeks, the database containing the average prices of 52 products sold in Canadian grocery stores will be completely removed by Statistics Canada. The agency is essentially turning the page on more than 25 years of data to establish an expanded list of products whose prices will be collected every month. This new list will likely be more reflective of the modern diet.
There's no doubt this change was needed as the existing list of products was quite dated. In fact, even if you go back 25 years, the list was quite immaterial to most of us.
For example, the only fish on the list was canned salmon. The fish and seafood industry is huge in Canada, but canned salmon was the only fish Statistics Canada monitored over the last 25 years.
The produce category also had just a handful of options and juice had one option: orange. The vegetable protein category wasn't represented at all. But vegetable proteins are consumed by a growing number of Canadians.
In addition, the updated Canada's Food Guide is more than three years old.
According to Statistics Canada's note, once the new list is posted, we won't be able to go back beyond March 2022 to access food prices. So getting any historical perspective on the new food basket won't be possible.
Removing this historical perspective essentially eliminates the ability to better understand how food costs have impacted our lives over the years. Money spent on food influences lifestyles, and our socio-economic status and historical points of reference have always been helpful to us all, including other government branches, economists and researchers.
That makes Statistics Canada's change quite disappointing.
Oddly, it appears the agency won't even create two food baskets in parallel so data can overlap. In the United States and elsewhere, federal agencies typically don't erase entire databases. At the very least, they don't make them inaccessible to the public.
Statistics Canada has been criticized over the years for its inaccuracy when it comes to mapping inflation, especially food inflation. This change raises questions about motive and why the announcement was so quiet.
