2023 Manion Lecture: Canada's Story – Census 2021 and the Data that Define Us (FON1-V34)

Transcript: 2023 Manion Lecture: Canada's Story – Census 2021 and the Data that Define Us

[Music plays. Video opens with an animated slide showing a spreading ink blotch changing colours. Text on slide: Manion Lecture / Manion Lecture 2023; Canada's Story – The Data That Defines Us / Canada's Story – the Data that Define Us.]

Narrator: Data. It's the building block of our understanding.

[Video shows an overhead view of people working together on their laptops and exchanging pages of graphs. The scene morphs into an image of the Earth spinning from space.]

Narrator: It helps us make informed decisions, measure progress, and understand the world around us, and there's more than ever before.

[Video shows a succession of images: a person being vaccinated; firefighters on the job; an ice-breaker ship sailing through frozen waters; a sidewalk full of people dressed in winter clothing; a summer view of a busy urban intersection; bricklayers at work; a clerk handing a customer a credit card transaction reader; a teacher with a class full of students; two medical professionals exchanging information; the Parliament Buildings; a satellite image of a wooded area; farm fields dotted with wind turbines; various historical government office buildings; a person doing a presentation of information graphs at office meeting.]

Narrator: Whether it involves tracking COVID-19 or firefighting efforts, sea ice in the Arctic or our current population and its evolution, and housing, inflation, schools or health care, data makes it possible to create a quantitative portrait of Canada.

Narrator: Reliance on high quality data is now an integral part of public policy. And in our data driven future, the fundamental role of official statistics and the public function of data have never been more vital.

[Video shows a succession of images: a black line snakes its way across the screen to form a crossroads signpost; skyscrapers being built; a person looking out at Toronto over Lake Ontario; a group of friends walk together at sunset, two have their arms around each other; a person works on their laptop wearing earphones; people admire Indigenous art at an Indigenous Cultural Centre; the Parliament Buildings; a skyscraper with urban greenery; a summer street view of people walking by Parliament Hill; a person holding a tablet and speaking in a classroom; a warehouse with stacks of boxes on pallets, a person is moving one of the pallets with a forklift.]

Narrator: The latest data is revealing our country is at a crossroads. Canada is in the midst of an identity shift. As we face challenges ahead and reckon with our past, we, as a country, government, the private sector, academia, media, are all grappling with how best to govern responsibly, utilize, monetize, and deal with data.

[Video shows a succession of images: archival photographs of a secretary pool, and people working in a mailroom; a warehouse piled high with skids of paper products; one person works on their computer while two more look on.]

Narrator: For over 100 years, Statistics Canada has been harnessing the power of data to make decision making easier. The agency is truly a major asset for Canada.

[Anil Arora appears full screen. Text on screen: Anil Arora, Chief Statistician of Canada / Anil Arora, Chief Statistician of Canada

Anil Arora: We are a key player and component of this data ecosystem. It's an important role: arbiter of quality, trustworthy information, and data steward. It's a challenge and an opportunity. The richer array of available data sources has increased our power to provide more timely and relevant information to policy and decision makers and, in turn, to all Canadians.

[Video shows a succession of images: a person works at a computer wearing a headset; three smiling people sit together in a meeting room; a person looks at records in an archive library; several people are gathered in a boardroom for a presentation; workers assemble mailing labels, there is a stack of Xpresspost envelopes already done and waiting  to be sent; a person looks through a workbook in their office cubicle.]

Narrator: Today, Statistics Canada is the country's most comprehensive and reliable source of information. It uses a variety of methods to compile data, including surveys, administrative records, accountable data-sharing agreements and more.

[Video shows a succession of images: a wide corridor in a conference hall with a sign that reads "Sustainable Development Goals, 5th Meeting of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goals Indicators (IAEG-SDGs)"; a large group of people are seated at long rows of tables with their laptops open, they are attending a panel discussion lecture; many people are taking notes at a lecture; Anil Arora speaks from a lectern; a long row of place cards of the speakers at the conference; two conference attendees greet each other; the audience of conference attendees applaud a speaker.]

Narrator: From data management to innovation, from partnership to our leadership role as a data steward here in Canada and internationally, the agency continues to push ahead.

[Video shows a succession of images: a group of people watch a computer monitor from a large office space; a slide from the CBC, text on slide "Canada prepares pandemic response plan as coronavirus cases continue to climb. Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam says trajectory of COVID-19 still unknown /Canada prepares for the possible arrival of coronavirus – Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, notes that the risk of contracting coronavirus remains low for Canadians"; a slide from CBC, text on slide "4th case of coronavirus in Ontario confirmed. Woman in her 20s tested positive for COVID-19 in Toronto after travelling to the virus's epicentre in China / A fourth case of coronavirus confirmed in Ontario. On February 21, an adult woman arriving from China presented with an intermittent cough. "; a series of news updates regarding COVID-19 flash on the screen.]

Narrator: Statistics Canada was already undergoing a modernization but COVID-19 accelerated its plans. The Canadian public asked it to take action and it rose to the challenge, demonstrating leadership at home and on the international stage.

[Video shows a succession of images: a cargo plane is loading a large shipment; the inside of a cargo plane loaded with supplies; two people work with medical supplies; a doctor works in an office; a black line snakes its way across the screen.]

Narrator: From wastewater tracking to the distribution of personal protective equipment, in the early days of the pandemic, the agency was able to be nimble in Canada's time of need. And there's more to do.

[Video shows a succession of images: two people are at a desk, and one is pointing to the computer screen; a group of people pose for a photo honouring the Top 25 Canadian Immigrants; a group of new immigrants attend a welcoming event; a group of immigrants in their traditional clothing; a group of people posing in front of an Inuit Studies banner; an audience member speaks into a microphone at a public meeting.]

Narrator: As the country faces social and economic challenges, more efforts are being made to gather data about our diverse nation and the many complex intersections of identity.

[Video shows a succession of images: a person checks a list on their tablet against a list on a massive screen; a satellite image of a wooded area, bits of computer data are superimposed over this image and stream towards the viewer; a satellite view of Earth spinning in space, while lines representing data streams encircle the planet.]

Narrator: The challenges of our digital era also present opportunities for innovation. We all have a role to play in harnessing the power of data responsibly. A robust data ecosystem allows us to have quality, timely, relevant data, helping us make informed decisions. This data ecosystem is essential in helping us address key challenges and moving our society and economy forward in a time of uncertainty and change.

[Anil Arora appears full screen. Text on screen: Anil Arora, Chief Statistician of Canada / Anil Arora, Chief Statistician of Canada

Anil Arora: The data-driven information from Statistics Canada supports the decisions that governments, organizations, businesses and all Canadians make each day. These decisions affect the future of our country. We know that better data leads to better results for us and for generations to come.

[Text on screen: "Welcome / Welcome"]

[Anil Arora walks on stage while the audience applauds.]

Anil Arora: Thank you. Thank you. So, for my first dance number, <laugh>

[Elder McGregor is shown seated in the audience.]

Anil Arora: Thank you. Elder McGregor. Thank you. Miigwech.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: I want to start off by acknowledging that we are on the traditional lands, the unceded and unsurrendered lands of the Anishinaabe Algonquin people.

[A slide shows a map of the traditional Anishinaabe Algonquin Territory overlaid with images of an eagle feather, an Inukshuk, and the Infinity symbol.]

Anil Arora: They have been the caretakers of our Ottawa River watershed and they have welcomed nations. And I thank you for them. Take a minute and just recognize where we are.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: My colleague Taki Sarantakis

[Taki Sarantakis is shown seated in the audience. Text on screen "President, Canada School of Public Service / President, Canada School of Public Service."]

Anil Arora: and all my dedicated friends at the Canada School of Public Service, thank you.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Thank you for the great honour of presenting the Manion Lecture today.

[Video shows an archival photo of John Manion. He is smiling and wearing a Tuxedo.]

Anil Arora: John Manion was known for his deep commitment to public service and I am glad to pay tribute to him.

[Dr. Ian Manion is shown seated in the audience. Text on screen "Mental Health System Consultant, Public Speaker, Manion & Associates / Mental Health Consultant, Lecturer, Manion & Associates."]

Anil Arora: I'd like to welcome Dr. Manion, who is with us today. Thank you for being here.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Friends and colleagues, I feel like some of you are with me here on the stage today because you have shaped my thinking and I want to thank you for that.

[Anil Anora's family is shown seated in the audience.

Anil Arora: A couple members of my family are here as well. Thank you for being the wind in my sails.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And lastly, let me tell you, talking to all of you is simple. I have a few colleagues here from Statistics Canada, and they're subject matter experts, so every single number that I'm going to share with you, they're going to scrutinize. <laugh> So, don't let them heckle too much, "Well, it's actually this." <laugh> Okay, so look, if you take nothing away from the conversation today, it is this:

[Video shows an image of a signpost. Text on the sign pointing left "Rock / Rock "; text on sign pointing right "Hard Place / hard place".]

Anil Arora: that we are at an inflection point. In a sense we're going to end an era, and we're about to start a new one.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And I don't want to be overly dramatic, but I think if you look at our data, all the time series are being disrupted in a way that we haven't seen before. And so, in a sense, it's really hard to see patterns that were there before and have models and forecast and say with certainty, this is what's going to happen next.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And that is really an important juncture that we are on. And many of you I know are my colleagues in the policy making area. It's hard making policy when the country's future rests on the decisions that we make.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: To some, well, this is uplifting. But to some, let me tell you, it's terrifying. But that's where we are. And I've always believed that the future is not something that we drift into. It's something we shape and we drive forward with. And so we're not helpless in this journey. Yes, you see the technological change, you see the social change, you see the environmental challenges that we've got, and you see the economic challenges that we've got. The one thing that is without a doubt truth

[Split screen: Anil Arora on stage; slide image of a race car.]

Anil Arora: is the speed at which things are changing. It is continuously speeding up.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage. Bilingual text appears, as described.]

Anil Arora: And so today in my talk, I want to focus on four things. First on demography. Secondly, I'm going to talk a little bit about immigration in its role and how it's shaping demography. The economy, of course, and how it's in transition. And then of course, the role of data, the critical role of data.

[Anil Arora on stage. Bilingual text appears, as described.]

Anil Arora: I would say that demography is destiny. And you'll see that throughout the course of the talk today. As the old saying goes, if you don't know where you've come from, any road will do.

Now, let me kind of turn back a little bit and talk a little bit about our history. We're a country of immigrants.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: At the turn of the 20th century,

[Video shows a black and white photo of a river flowing through a snowy evergreen forest. Overlaid text reads "1901 – 1911".]

Anil Arora: we saw huge in migration into Canada. Between 1901 and 1911,

[Video shows a bilingual population graph, as described.]

Anil Arora: we actually grew at an annual rate of 3%. And at that point, you know the old saying,

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: "Go west" Well, that's exactly where things were being settled is the West.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: In fact, as the western provinces start to come into confederation, it was a condition that they'd be included in a five yearly census.

[Video shows a black and white photo of a prairie field with the Rockies in the background. Overlaid text reads "1906 Census / Census 1906".]

Anil Arora: And we actually include the census of agriculture on top of that.

[Video shows a bilingual slide, as described.]

Anil Arora: By 1911, we had grown to 7.2 million. Incidentally, just for your information today, the number of immigrants in Canada is 8.3 million.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: So, we saw huge increases in the lands that were ceded out west. We saw a booming manufacturing sector. We saw internal consumption increase, and we saw our mining sector take off. Well, of course, after that, like many other countries, we did not escape the Great Depression.

[Video shows a black and white photo of a tumble-down shacks and tents in a clearing in the woods.

Anil Arora: That's a difficult period in Canada. We saw immense deflation. We saw people losing their lives and livelihoods. We saw economic and social turmoil during the thirties.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And it was at that time the governments took on a very active and a very aggressive role in our society and in our economies. And you saw also because of the suffering, the introduction of social welfare programs. Incidentally, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics came into being in 1918

[Split screen: Anil Arora on stage; bilingual slide with an image of a Bank of Canada building.]

Anil Arora: and the Bank of Canada in 1935.

[Video shows a bilingual population graph, as described.]

Anil Arora: After the Second World War, a period of massive population growth enabled our economy to benefit from a robust manufacturing sector and the export of our natural resources.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: The government felt that population growth was essential to grow our population and thereby maintain our industrial strength and enjoy a solid fiscal base, which was necessary to sustain the social welfare measures adopted at the end of the war.

Anil Arora: We developed the System of National Accounts working internationally, and we were one of the first ones in this country to adopt it. And the System of National Accounts allowed us to get a much greater understanding of the economy and its various components and the various sectors of the industry. In fact, the SNA, the System of National Accounts, along with the census, is the foundation on which finance actually bases its equalization and transfer payments on.

Well, after the war, our soldiers came back. It was a real concern about how are we going to integrate them into the employment of our country and how are we going to measure the unemployment? And in fact, in 1945 that gave birth to the Labour Force Survey. It was the first major survey that Canada undertook where we introduced sampling. And we opened up operational offices all across the country, Regional Service Centres we call them today, and that increased our reach and our impact in Canada. And in fact, I started in one of those regional offices in Edmonton. Not in 1945, <laugh>, in case you're wondering, it was a little bit later on, in 1988.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And today we have close to 400 different survey programs in this country.

[Video shows a black and white photo of the Dionne quintuplets. Overlaid text reads "Fertility rate / Fertility rate : 3.8."]

Anil Arora: Well, following the war, as you all know, we had the baby boom. And on top of that, we had increased immigration.

[Bilingual slide, as described.]

Anil Arora: We grew as a country from 12 million people in 1945 to 16 million by the mid 1950s.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Southern Europe were where people came from to settle. And in fact, they shaped the social economic fabric of this country in the post-war era.

It was the first time that we saw household incomes increase because we had multiple income earners in every household.

[Split screen: Anil Arora on stage; slide with an image of a woman stenographer.]

Anil Arora: Women made an impressive 24% of the labour force back then. And we were shifting.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: We were shifting from an agriculture economy, a farming economy, into more of an industrial economy. We were moving from the rural areas and the farm areas into our urban centres. And that was a time that we saw massive construction. We saw nuclear plants, we saw freeways, we saw chemical plants, and we saw an explosion of development and infrastructure.

Under Prime Minister Pearson's direction, we gained a national flag, the Canada Pension Plan, the national health insurance plan and, for federal public servants, the right to free collective bargaining.

[Image of a balance superimposed over a map of Canada. On one side of the balance is "Europe", the other side "Africa/Afrique Asia/Asie". The balance tips over from Europe to the other side.]

Anil Arora: In fact, in 1967, we made a pretty massive shift in our immigration policy. We introduced the point system.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: In fact, that change was massive, and it shaped the nature of this country in a very fundamental way. And in a sense, today we are at the start of another massive wave of immigration.

[Video shows a bilingual population graph from 1860 to 2020: "Population Growth – Croissance de la population", peaks in the graph show large increases in 1901, 1911, 1950s, and another peak starting in 2020.]

Anil Arora: And frankly, the pace is unlike anything that we have seen before. It is dizzying.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: 2022 saw the largest influx of immigrants coming to Canada, 1 million plus. 400,000 that were permanent, and 600,000 that were temporary. And as you know, many of the temporary immigrants end up staying in this country after as well. In just a few short weeks, we will pass the 40 million mark in this country.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Let me just compare our situation with a couple other countries. Firstly, Japan.

[Video shows a map of Japan. Overlaid bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: It's got the lowest births ever recorded this last year. Their fertility rate is 1.3. You need 2.1 to keep the population steady. They closed, this past year, 430 schools. Their labour force participation has dropped from 70% in 1993 to 59% this last year.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: The burden of those who are working, who have to support those that are not, that are mainly aged, by many is seen to be unsustainable.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Their share of debt to GDP is the highest in the world. And more than 90,000 people are over the age of 100. 90,000 Centenarians. And the foreign resident population, because as you know, they have a different attitude towards immigrants.

[Video shows a map of Japan. Overlaid bilingual slide, as described.]

Anil Arora: It's just 2.29%.

[Video shows a map of Italy. Overlaid bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: Let's take Italy. The population of Italy has been dropping steadily since 2014. Their fertility rate is 1.24. Their labour force participation is 61%, and their foreign resident population is just over eight and a half, 8.6%.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: They will lose a fifth of their population by 2050.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Now, let's look at ours.

[Split screen: a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage; a map of Canada, with overlaid bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: Our fertility rate is 1.4, not that far off. Our labour force participation is 66%. But the big difference here is immigration. 23% of Canadians are immigrants.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And by the way, we're still growing older as a country, even with immigration.

[Bilingual slide, as described.]

Anil Arora: The temporary population today in Canada is equivalent to the Indigenous population at 1.8 million. Just think about that for a minute.

[Split screen: a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage; an aerial winter view of a crowd of people all dressed in different bright colours standing outside on snow covered ground. Together, they form the shape of a map of Canada; overlaid bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: Between 2016 and 2021, our census showed that we grew at a rate of 5.3%, the highest in the G-7. Our Indigenous population grew at almost twice that rate, at 9.4%.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: In 2022, we grew by 2.7% alone. As I mentioned earlier, 96% of our growth, 96, pretty well everybody, is because of immigration.If we keep that rate of growth, it's like compounding interest.

[Video shows an aerial winter view of a crowd of people all dressed in different bright colours standing outside on snow covered ground. Together, they form the shape of a map of Canada; overlaid bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: In the next 26 years, we will double our population.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: 26 years is a blink in our history. It's a generation.

[Video shows a diverse collection of photographs of smiling people. Overlaid bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: So, let's break this down some more. Who is coming to Canada? Who is coming into this country? One out of every four people come from Europe or the British Isles or the United States. 62% come from Asia. And our racialized population in Canada today is 26%.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: 4.6 million people speak a language other than English or French. The other languages most spoken at home are Tagalog, Punjabi, Mandarin, Cantonese and Arabic. Indigenous languages saw a slight increase of 7% between 2016 and 2021, primarily as a second language. Nearly 35% of the Canadian population has no religious beliefs, and 53% remain Christian.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: The Muslim population, about 5%; Hindus and Sikhs, about 2%. So, if we were to look at our growth on a population clock,

[Split screen: Anil Arora on stage; slide with an image of a hand holding a stopwatch. Overlaid bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: every single minute of the entire day, every single minute an immigrant comes to this country. Every 50 seconds, a non-immigrant comes to this country. And every 21 minutes somebody leaves this country. Just gives you a scale of at which we are moving.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: So, let's assume that Taki invited us all here in 20 years. We're sitting here. So, you're sitting in the rows and you look to your left and to your right, one in three would be born abroad. One in two would either be an immigrant or would be born to an immigrant. And in fact, one out of four would come from either Asia or from Africa.

[Video shows a diverse collection of photographs of smiling people. Overlaid bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: At this rate, the black population in Canada will be larger than the Chinese population. And racialized population rate in Canada by 2041 is going to be in excess of 40%.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: So, the question I pose to you is, who are we building this country for? In whose image? Will we take all our biases and our inequities and all the disproportionality that we have and just transpose it into the future?Or are we going to take the needs and the preferences and the wants and desires of those who are going to make this country and be part of the future? And are we going to chase unintended consequences, or are we going to build them into the way our policy is structured?

Statistics Canada, during the course of the pandemic, would've had every reason to say, you know what? People are fighting for their lives. Businesses are fighting for their livelihoods. We don't need to survey them and burden them further. In fact, we did the opposite. We said, when there is fog and we don't know where we're going, we need more data, we need better clarity. And we introduced a series of programs, including a very important one on disaggregated data. So, let me just kind of dig into some of the results of that. And let me look at education and labour.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Three in four Indigenous people in Canada finish high school. And we look at on reserve, it's about 55% that finish high school. The median age of Indigenous people in Canada is 8.2 years younger than that of the nation. And in fact, the employment rate on reserve is 56%.

[Bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: If you look at bachelor's degrees of higher attainment for the kids of black people, or of African immigrants, if you look at their employment, they are overrepresented in a fairly significant way in jobs that actually only require high school or maybe even less, and yet they have bachelor's degrees. Their employment rates lag. And that happens for racialized groups everywhere.

[Video shows a Black healthcare professional taking information from a patient in a busy waiting room. Overlaid slide, as described.]

Anil Arora: Let's focus on the health sector for a minute. One in three of foreign trained nurses actually work as nurses in Canada. For doctors it's not a whole lot better.

[Video shows a healthcare professional of Asian descent. Overlaid slide, as described.]

Anil Arora: Two in five actually work as doctors if they're foreign trained.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: If you happen to be born and trained in Canada, nine out of 10. We've never seen as many vacancies in Canada in the healthcare sector ever. 147,300 according to our job vacancy and wage survey. And yet 15%, or more than 5 million Canadians, don't have a regular healthcare provider.

We look at mental health, 45% of our healthcare workers told us that their mental health had deteriorated over the course of the last three years. One in four nurses, one in six personnel who are support workers, one in 10 physicians said that they want to leave the profession in the next three years.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And yet we're going to see the biggest population that's aged 80 or over than we have ever seen. And as you know, the disproportionate needs for healthcare for them are not going to end for some time yet. Remember what I said, destiny and demography? It's those baby boomers.

Environics and the Century Initiative did a poll last October. 69% of those that responded said that they support the current level of immigration. 85% of them felt that immigration has a very positive impact on our economy. However, 46% believe that too many immigrants come to this country and do not adopt Canadian values.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: We saw hate crimes go up. We saw [that] racism is up like we've never seen before. And of course, immigration doesn't spread itself evenly within Canada. You look at Toronto, Vancouver: we are going to see populations who are racialized in excess of 70%. If you look at Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa: in excess of 50% racialized populations by 2041. That is not far. And let's compare that to the rural areas of our country. 5% today are racialized and they will go to 10%.

[Video shows a bilingual population graph, as described.]

Anil Arora: One-third of permanent immigrants settle in Canada's six larges turban cities: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa. Our rural communities are in decline, but if current trends continue, the context could change.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And so, we talk a lot about housing. How are we going to house all these immigrants? Well, let me tell you the challenges are even bigger than that.

[Split screen: Anil Arora on stage; slides with images of a person with a bicycle in a residential neighbourhood; children playing in a park. Overlaid bilingual slides, as described.]

Anil Arora: How do we build inclusive cities and communities with green spaces and wetlands and farmlands and urban parks and daycares and healthcares and shopping centres

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: and the transit and the digital infrastructure so that every single person can succeed?

Because that's what it's going to take for this country to succeed.

[Split screen: Anil Arora on stage; slide with an image of an aerial view of a sprawling suburban neighborhood.]

Anil Arora: Our postal code cannot be the determinant

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: of our income, our social inclusion, our quality of health, or even our mortality. And yet that's the case today.

Recognizing the English/French divide, particularly in official language minority communities, will be important to ensure equal educational opportunities and service delivery in a bilingual Canada.

[Split screen: Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage; slide shows the logo of the Edmonton Oilers.]

Anil Arora: And if you thought that was the end of our challenges, <laugh> I had to sneak that in.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Remember, I grew up in Edmonton, in case you're wondering.

Let me transition to the economy.

[Video shows an image of an oil derrick against a beautiful sunset sky. Overlaid bilingual text, as described.]

Anil Arora: We've always been, and are a very strong resource-based economy, and a very strong trading nation.

[Video shows an image of robotic machinery in a massive automotive factory. Overlaid bilingual text, as described.]

Anil Arora: Building our nation has been synonymous with building infrastructure. The prosperity that we've had in one part of the country,

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: because of that infrastructure, has allowed us to share in the wealth in other parts of the country. And also cushion when the manufacturing sector, or the oil and gas, or the mining sector, or other sectors were going, it cushioned the blow in other parts of the country.

[Split screen: Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage; a succession of slides show: a lonely railway track; a machinist working with a grinder; a long stretch of the Trans-Canada highway with the Rockies in the distance.]

Anil Arora: We built railroads starting back in the 1880s. We built pipelines with the discovery of oil back in the 1940s. And we built, of course, highways, including the Trans-Canada Highway between 1962 and 1971.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And let me tell you, there's another infrastructure that we've been developing that you may not have seen, but it's the statistical infrastructure. And it has been just as transformative on this country.

I mentioned earlier the equalization transfer payments. We are only able to do that because we have a strong data infrastructure, statistical infrastructure. The way that we reallocate taxes, like the HST. The census, and how they factor into a smooth functioning democracy, in terms of representation. And we are not just passive providers and not the exclusive providers, of course. We are woven, just as the physical infrastructure of this country, into its smooth functioning.

So, our population in the world, we are about less than half a percent. So, if you were to rank population in the world, we'd be 39th.

[Video shows an image of a skyscraper being built and the Canadian flag flying, against a clear blue sky. Overlaid bilingual text, as described.]

Anil Arora: Our economy today is 2 trillion dollars US. We are ninth in terms of the economy, in terms of our size.

[Video shows slide with bilingual text, as described.]

Anil Arora: About 270 billion of that is in rental, leasing, real estate. 195 billion is in manufacturing. 156 billion is in the mining, the quarrying, the oil and gas sector.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And then we have about 150 billion, give or take, in some of the other key sectors like construction, finance and insurance, health, and social assistance. We are 3% larger today than we were before the pandemic, in terms of our economy. In 2022 our economy grew by 3.4%. We have 865,000 more workers today in the labour force than we did before the pandemic. We see poverty and income inequality actually decrease during the last few years.

And that's largely because of, of course, the income, the employment, more people working, but also government transfers. And you see household disposable incomes actually increased by 20% during the course of the pandemic. And actually even in the lower income quintiles. And we see a savings rate today that is twice that of where it was pre-pandemic. In fact, the deposits in bank accounts today are 160 billion dollars more than they were before. So, the ability to demand has gone up. And, of course, you see the implication to the CPI, the Consumer Price Index.

[Split screen: Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage; slide shows an image of a person carrying a shopping basket.]

Anil Arora: The consumer price index peaked at 8.1% in June 2022

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: and has since slowed because of lower energy prices, falling to 4.3% in March.

[Video shows slide with bilingual text, as described.]

Anil Arora: High food, mortgage interest and housing prices continue to pose serious challenges for many Canadians,

[Video shows slide with an image of a young couple at the kitchen table, worrying over a bill.]

Anil Arora: particularly young people and recent immigrants.

[Video shows slide with bilingual text, as described.]

Anil Arora: Rapidly escalating mortgage rates could add around $1,000 to usual monthly payments, and at the same time annual price increases for new rental contracts in many cities are in the double digits.

One of the things that we did during the Covid time was a business condition survey to find out how businesses are doing during this time.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And in fact, that survey tells us, because we continue it, that businesses are going to still continue to show strong sales. Of course, they're having challenges of high inflation. They're having a labour shortage, labour challenges. And in fact, now many of them are starting to see lower consumer spending and, of course, they're adjusting their investments accordingly.

We're seeing, as you know, in Canada, a clearly integrated and highly dependent economy on what's happening globally. But, let me tell you, far more so in terms of what's happening in the US. Our international trade to bolster our standard of living is going to be absolutely crucial. And Covid, and of course the Russian invasion of Ukraine, did quite a number on supply chains and the disruption to trade flows. And we are going to have to continue, just like many other countries, to look at innovative policies to be able to counter some of the mechanisms that are being put in place so that those supply chains are resilient, and that we in fact have a more environmentally responsible economy, and that we continue to have investments and capital flow to this country. And if you look at what happens in the States, what do they put together?

[Split screen: Video shows Anil Arora on stage; slide shows an image of the USA flag with overlaid bilingual text, as described.]

Anil Arora: The US Inflation Reduction Act.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: You've heard of ChatGPT?

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: You probably didn't hear about it just a few weeks ago, did you? So now, if we didn't have enough to deal with on the social and environmental side, now we've got this technology. And it seriously threatens to disrupt in a very significant way. Not just the lower paid, but in fact the very high paid IT sectors, as well. And as you know, some have said, "Enough! Can you make the world stop for a few minutes?" Well, the world doesn't stop. We don't stop. We're Canadians. We have to step up. Change is going to just continue to come at us. Again, that pace thing that I was talking about.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: We are a country that's rich in natural resources

[Video shows a collection of images: a mining operation; a prairie field dotted with wind turbines; a fully loaded logging truck; a lobster being pulled from the water.]

Anil Arora: and climate change adaptation is both a major challenge, but it's also a major opportunity. We can't miss this next wave.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Some argue we missed the natural gas wave. We can't miss this next wave. We have to figure out how to keep our extractive industries strong, with lower environmental footprints. And we need to look at opportunities to better use our rich endowments, in areas such as critical minerals, and create new supply chains and new forms of wealth in this country.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: I think you know we've committed to reducing our GHG emissions

[Video shows a bilingual GHG Emissions graph, as described.]

Anil Arora: by 40 to 45% by 2030, and to be carbon neutral by 2050. I mean, those are pretty ambitious and impressive targets.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: We emit about 670 metric tonne equivalents of carbon dioxide today, just so you know. Some have pegged the amount of investment that's going to be required to meet those targets, to be somewhere between $60 and $160 billion every year. Just let that sink in. Between 60 and 160 billion annually that's going to be required.

And so, some say, "Well, just shut the energy sector off." Remember when I said it makes up $156 billion annually to our economy? You can't just do that. And let's say you need another 160, that's 320 billion. Where are we going to find that? So, the way forward has to be with the energy sector. And it's going to, in fact, take all the sectors, whether it's our building, our transportation, every single sector to work responsibly to achieve some of those targets. And they're going to each have to contribute in a very significant way.

[Video shows a bilingual Investment graph, as described.]

Anil Arora: Look, attracting and investing capital is a massive challenge in this country. And you look at our traditional resource industries, they have been the primary draw of that investment capital in this country, which as I mentioned, it has this kind of equalizing effect.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: And that was the reason why we bounced back, by the way, after the previous recession, is because of the investments in our traditional sectors.

It is less clear where the impetus for investment-led growth will come from in the future. Investments in traditional resources have enabled equitable growth in traditional resources, enabled equitable income growth and paved the way to the middle class.

Two fundamental conditions are absolutely necessary and very important. First, domestic and foreign businesses must invest here in Canada; second, we must

produce the needs and services that the whole world requires.. And that they're willing to pay for it. And yet, as you know, three quarters of our exports go to the US.

Energy and automotive sectors, as you know, are absolutely dependent on North American supply chains. We are both partners and competitors. And, if you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, that is a massive area for both collaboration and competition. And it's going to continue to be a challenge with other countries going in the similar direction.

Now, I'm going to switch to productivity.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Productivity, as they say, is not everything, but it's almost everything. Our standard of living depends on productivity. And if you look at our labour productivity,

[Video shows a bilingual Labour Productivity graph, as described.]

Anil Arora:  it slowed between 2015 and 2019. And in fact, it hasn't recovered. And if you start to compare our productivity with that of the US, that gap continues to widen. The US simply out-invests in capital and in human development.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: We just cannot, as a country, simply afford to grow big and poor. We need to grow big and the per capita incomes need to keep up with it. So, we need to grow our economies commensurate with our population.

[Anil Arora takes a quick break for a sip of water.]

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Given our demographic realities, it is hard to imagine an increase

[Video shows a slide of a quote from Tiff Macklem: "As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada has the opportunity to realize long overdue productivity gains.

In the years to come, business investment decisions will determine the trajectory of Canada's productivity growth."]

Anil Arora: in work intensity and employment rates beyond current levels. Low productivity is a natural brake on wage growth.

[Video shows a slide of a quote from Tiff Macklem: "As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada has the opportunity to make long overdue gains in productivity. In the years ahead, business investment decisions will determine the path of Canada's productivity growth."]

Anil Arora: It is difficult to raise wages if businesses are not earning more. Unit labour costs have risen sharply during the pandemic. They are 17% higher than before the pandemic.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: [Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Look, we're a country with the lowest deficit in the G-7. We have the best debt to GDP ratio. And yet our federal debt is now 1.2 trillion dollars. Our deficit 43 billion. Just the servicing cost annually is $44 billion. The challenge is how do we grow our economy while maintaining the costs of an expanding social infrastructure?

Of course, agile regulatory systems are going to be crucial; remaining responsible and inclusive; provinces and territories being part of this development. And, of course, Indigenous governments have to be part of shaping our future.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Does this all sound a little overwhelming to you? And yet, let me tell you, there isn't a country out there that wouldn't trade their problems for ours. 58% of our working age population

[Split screen: Video shows Anil Arora on stage; slide shows an image of the Canadian flag with overlaid bilingual text, as described.]

Anil Arora: has a college or university credential. Highest in the world.

We rank among the top 10 OECD countries with the lowest income inequality and an above-average sense of community. We remain extremely competitive in attracting and retaining immigrants and top talent, with high levels of national support.

We have the best public service in Canada, in the world. World leaders in information technology; in artificial intelligence; in machine learning; in responsible data management, and of course statistics.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: So, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, demography shapes our destiny. The role of immigration is absolutely crucial. Inclusion and diversity are our strengths. Our challenges of managing the intersection point between our society, our technology, the economy and our environment are going to be absolutely crucial to shaping our future in this rapidly evolving and competitive world.

How do we know these things? Well, because we have a great knowledge system through which, as you know, our agency works hard at every single day to make sure that you have the information at your disposal. Nothing that I've told you is a secret today. It's all freely available.

[Video shows an image of a bilingual page from Statistics Canada's website, as described.]

Anil Arora:  Just go to our website, look at the myriad of things that you can access.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: We've created hubs and portals that bring data across different domains and provide insights from the hundreds of survey programs. The census of the environment, the first of its kind in the world. The Canadian Centre for Energy Information that brings energy and environment and people aspects together.

[Video shows an image of a bilingual page from Statistics Canada's website, as described.]

Anil Arora: The Quality of Life Hub that now goes beyond GDP on wellness.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: There are 84 indicators in five different domains. Gender Diversity and Inclusion Statistics Hub; Statistics on the Métis, the Inuit, and the First Nations that build greater Indigenous data sovereignty and capacity.

[Video shows an image of a bilingual page from Statistics Canada's website, as described.]

Anil Arora: We've got Sustainable Development Goals, and of course we've got the Canadian Indicator Framework, which is a subset of that.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: So, as we invest in innovative policy people and infrastructure, we equally need to continue to invest in the critical data infrastructure. And we need to understand where we are. Where are we going, what are we trying to achieve? What works and what doesn't work? We do not have resources or time to waste.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: It's the intricate relationships between these aspects and the data allow us to see that and be efficient and effective in what we're doing. We need to build in data strategies at the onset. To see faster is to act faster. And that agility is our competitive advantage.

Our job is to eliminate complexity and highlight interconnections through high-quality data and information, and we can and must do this responsibly, while protecting privacy and confidentiality. This is not a compromise.

It's not a tradeoff.

We have prominent frameworks for necessity and proportionality, developed with our colleagues from Treasury Board and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. We have good governance and ethics frameworks that other organizations can adopt. We have workshops and seminars on data control and standards to help us move forward.

[Split screen: Video shows Anil Arora on stage; slide shows an image of children of different ethnicities holding up a trophy and cheering.]

Anil Arora: Data truly is a team sport. Our sole objective is public good, we're not competing.

[Video shows an image of a large collection of bilingual logos of organisations in partnership with Canada.]

Anil Arora: New data sources and partnerships are absolutely key so that we can reduce burden; we can provide timely insights; we can actually have good standards; ensure inter-operability with privacy and confidentiality.

[Video shows an image of an even larger collection of bilingual logos of Canadian organisations.]

Anil Arora: And we are expanding those partnerships. We're working with the chambers of commerce, with the business council. We are working with businesses that can now make use of micro data with confidentiality that's built in. This is not theory.

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: The Business Data Lab exists and is now being used. We have a network of 32 regional data centres all across this country, coast to coast, including virtual data access now, where Canadian data researchers through our Canadian Research Data Centre Network brings new data sources and our academics together and they produce thousands of papers and new insights every single year.

These partnerships are absolutely crucial if we're going to have that knowledge base that's going to move us forward.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Our partnerships with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities; our First Nations Governance Centre; the Métis, Inuit, and the First Nations organizations, and we are helping build data management capacity.

Of course, we've got a long history of working with provinces:

[Anil Arora on stage.]

Anil Arora: Justice for 40 years; Education for 25 years. And we're hoping to play even a key role on the Health Data File.

With our federal colleagues, with you, through the renewal of the federal government's data strategies, with our colleagues in the media. Thank you.

You allow citizens to use good data to counter misinformation and to fuel engaged and informed debate.

And, of course, Taki with the School. They've been amazing partners at making sure that we increase our numeracy and literacy skills in the public service as well as in our population. We take full advantage of our technical advisory committees and of course our Canadian Statistics Advisory Council.

Look, governments alone, let alone one level of government, is going to be able to tackle all this and build this future. It's going to take everybody. It's going to take governments, it's going to take the private sector, it's going to take civil society, it's going to take academics, researchers, it's going to take all of us to build that future that Canada and Canadians deserve.

And of course, Statistics Canada will be right there, right alongside, as a key player and will remain at your service playing this data stewardship role. We bring, of course, over a hundred years of expertise. Thank you. Merci.

[Video shows a view of the audience with Anil Arora on stage. An image of a hand holding a maple leaf in a forest filled with dappled sunlight can be seen at the back of the stage. The audience applauds while Anil takes a bow.]

[Video shows an animated slide showing a spreading ink blotch changing colours. Text on slide: Panel Discussion / Roundtable.]

[Video shows a view of the audience with the discussion participants seated in chairs on stage. They are, from left to right: Taki Sarantakis (Moderator); Goldy Hyder; Dr. Alika Lafontaine; Althia Raj; Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier.]

Taki Sarantakis: So, that was pretty much what we in the business call a tour de force of Canada from 1867 to today. And there is nothing like cutting through noise and looking at data to start to understand issues. And in Canada, we are really blessed with Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada is, if not the best statistical agency in the world consistently, it is right up there.

[Taki Sarantakis appears full screen. Text on screen: President, Canada School of Public Service /President, Canada School of Public Service.]

Taki Sarantakis: And in a world of misinformation, in a world of change, in a world of rapidly changing understandings of what is true and what is false, we have a North Star. And that's a pretty big asset that we're going to utilize in the years to come going forward.

I would like to start with Chantale. Chantale, maybe you could share your thoughts?

Chantal Bernier: Well, first and foremost, I'm probably saying what everyone is thinking, that was absolutely amazing. Thank you very much Anil.

And beyond that, as a privacy lawyer, I see the team that Anil refers to saying statistics are teamwork. I see the personal data behind the statistics. If Statistics Canada can give us such tremendous insights that support our sound public policies,

[Chantal Bernier appears full screen. Text on screen: Co-chair, Global Privacy and Cybersecurity Group, Dentons Canada/Co-Director, Global Privacy and Cybersecurity Group, Dentons Canada.]

Chantal Bernier: it is because it has 400 programs. It is because it has now the courage to go get desegregated data. However, we need to - talking about inflection point - we need to face this central question at the moment with the power of data.

So, we now have unprecedented volumes of data. We have data that is no longer just static. It is dynamic, which is what makes Jim Balsillie say, "Data is not the new oil, it's the new plutonium", because data produces more data, and it does so autonomously. We don't even know what is produced about us. So, in this context, you see the extraordinary power of statistics

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are seated on stage.]

Chantal Bernier: to ground even better public policy, but you also see the need to ensure it happens with full respect of the individual. And I am reassured, if I can say so, in seeing initiatives that are emerging that I believe will assist Statistics Canada in pursuing this courageous work.

[Chantal Bernier appears full screen.]

Chantal Bernier: The first one is in a bill that is in the House of Commons right now. Bill C 27 proposes three bills, but one of them reforms our private sector privacy law. And it contains a provision that will allow company to disclose de-identified data, I'll explain what it is in a moment, de-identified data to government institutions such as Statistics Canada for socially beneficial purposes. We've never had that before. Socially beneficial purpose is defined as a purpose for health; for public amenities; for environment, and so on.

And de-identified data is not anonymized. It's data that is still traceable. Meaning that with the secondary source, you can still go back to individuals. So, we're not talking about deep anonymized data, we're talking about personal data, and yet it will be possible to give it to government organizations under a framework of optimisation of data. The [INAUDIBLE] legislation for privacy law has just been reformed, giving the same parameters. And so I just want to put this on the table that we need to truly address the challenge of optimizing data in full respect of privacy so that we can continue to produce this kind of quality of statistics.

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are seated on stage.]

Taki Sarantakis: Yes, Jim calls it plutonium. I'll do him one better. I call it oxygen. It is critical to the state. And the linkages between the origins of the state and data, they're almost one and the same. You can see them in every country in the western world and in much of the eastern world, where data and statehood go hand in hand.

I want to flip now to Goldy, and if Anil is a little bit of a Cassandra today, Goldy is - no, sorry, the opposite. Anil is a little bit of a Pollyanna today. Goldy is a little grumpy today, <laugh>. So, Goldy will play the role of Cassandra.

[Taki Sarantakis appears full screen. The camera slowly pans to include Goldy Hyder.]

Taki Sarantakis: Anil started by saying that we're at an inflection point in Canada. And when we have you come to the School to talk to ADMs and future Deputy Ministers, you say something very similar. You say, we're in a very serious time. And that's how you start almost all your talks at the School. We're in a very serious time. Tell us a little bit what you felt and how you reacted to all the stuff that Anil was going through.

Goldy Hyder: Well, first of all, thank you Taki, for the invite

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are seated on stage.]

Goldy Hyder: and how proud I am of my friend Anil here for taking, as you said, a tour de force. I listened very carefully to what was said, and I think it just underscores my point about what a serious time in which we live. And I don't talk about it in the context of just Canada.

[Goldy Hyder appears full screen. Text on screen: President and Chief Executive Officer, Business Council of Canada / President and CEO of the Canadian Business Council]

Goldy Hyder: I often start my remarks by saying take a look at democracies around the world. Democracies are in decline around the world. There are less of them today than there were just 25 years ago. So, if you're keeping score, we're losing. And you have to ask yourself, why? If we believe we have the best system; we have the best values; we have the open society; the inclusive; diverse, all of that stuff, why are we losing?

And part of the reason we're losing is that capital is agnostic to ideology, and capital is agnostic to nationality. Growth and economic investment come in places where capital is welcome; where there's a stable, predictable regulatory regime; where there's a depoliticization of our regulatory systems, and a place where success and growth is ambitious and not punished.

Culturally, many of these democracies have been, and I say this with the greatest of respect, not judging what I'm about to say, but they become playgrounds for special interests. How many of our political parties now call themselves movements? I never studied movements in political science school as a political party, I studied political parties. And yet it means that they've become responsive. So, part of the issue here is we're losing our political leaders in our democracies. They're being followers.

And so, what we're trying to do in the business community is to raise some of these issues in a responsible, honest, candid way because we love this country. We want to see it achieve [its] full potential. But when I listen to my friend, if I can just go systematically about what I would say are the five "I"s, if you will, and there may be more, but he talked about immigration.

So, yes, there's a tremendous positive story about immigration. We've worked very hard with our political parties to say, do us one favour, don't politicize this issue. We are not such a special people that if you're not baited and goaded to going to the dark corners of xenophobia, you know our history as well as I do, it's not pure, it's not clean. Going back from the Indigenous to the Japanese, to the Chinese, to the Sikhs, to the Jews. We're not clean. So don't goad us into that place. And thankfully, our major political parties have left immigration largely alone. And now we've gotten the numbers up to where we need to be at a half a million per year. The content of that is a separate issue, but overall, we're getting immigration right.

But we're also getting some things wrong. We dupe people into coming into this country and telling them we're going to recognize the value of their education. We give them points on that system, then we don't let them work in those areas. So, our foreign skills accreditation has got to get better. We have an immigration backlog of 2.7 million people that's declining, and I know they're working at it, but good people don't wait. Good people move on. There will always be people, if there's one human being breathing, they'll want to live in Canada. But is it the one you want? <Laugh> Is it the one you need? We have to be smarter about how we recruit, and that means you have to do a better job delivering the immigration system of itself.

Inflation. Governments of every stripe and every jurisdiction are spending money like they're drunken sailors. There's no end to it. We all know how this movie ends. You, the public service, know better than anybody from 1993. It ends badly. It will result in cuts, it will result in job losses, it will result in pain. And we're trying to advocate to grow an economy that can keep up with the spending. No one seems to be as obsessed with growing the economy than business leaders are about the need to grow that economy.

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are seated on stage.]

Goldy Hyder: So, inflation is another example. If you look at innovation, we're going to need to innovate our way out of so many of our problems, but innovation requires a lot of capital and a lot of talent. We're slow. We're reactionary in many of these places. We're very good at it when we get to it, but we're slow to that.

Take a look at interprovincial trade barriers. Another example of an own goal. And I can just go on and on. I won't have time, but every one of these things that I've just mentioned are own goals. You can't blame the United States, you can't blame China, you can't blame Donald Trump. These are self-imposed own goals that result in the budget that shows us with no growth. I take no pleasure in pointing this out. It's not my budget, it's the government's budget. It shows no growth.

So, you're smart people. How are we going to meet the challenges that Anil laid out with a shrinking population, shrinking revenues, and increasing demand?

[Goldy Hyder appears full screen. The camera pans over to Taki Sarantakis, who wags his finger a bit at Goldy.]

Goldy Hyder: How are we going to do that?

Taki Sarantakis: Not a shrinking population, a growing population.

Goldy Hyder: In working wise, what we're going to see is less people. I mean, especially with AI and all these other things, there's going to be - look, we know history.

Taki Sarantakis: So, a smaller workforce.

Goldy Hyder: A smaller workforce. How are we going to respond?

Taki Sarantakis: So, Dr. Lafontaine, I want to bring you in here.

Goldy Hyder: Be positive! <laugh>

Taki Sarantakis:

Coincidentally,

[Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine and Althia Raj are shown on stage. Goldy nudges Alika and they have a laugh.]

Goldy Hyder: Healthcare! How could you possibly say bad about healthcare <laugh>?

Taki Sarantakis: Exactly. Coincidentally, this year as we speak,

[Taki Sarantakis appears full screen.]

Taki Sarantakis: you are currently the President of the Canadian Medical Association. Anil talked to us about the challenges that are happening in terms of, not only the people that are in the system right now, but the people that we literally depend on for life and death at certain moments,

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are seated on stage.]

Taki Sarantakis: the doctors and the nurses, but also the people that have been trained in other countries to come to perform these tasks. And Anil's statistics were kind of sobering: only two out of five foreign trained doctors; only one out of three foreign trained nurses have their credentials recognized.

[Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine and Althia Raj are shown on stage.

Taki Sarantakis: There seems to be something wrong here, and I know that you're the head of a national association that is largely delivered provincially, but there seems to be some kind of disconnect where we have people who are burning out and leaving the profession

[Taki Sarantakis appears full screen.]

Taki Sarantakis:  while at the very same moment, having people that are trained in these areas driving taxis and working in restaurants.

[Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine and Althia Raj are shown on stage. Text on screen: Alika Lafontaine, President, Canadian Medical Association / President of the Canadian Medical Association.]

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: Yes, well, first off, thanks for inviting me to the panel, I always enjoy listening to you speak, but there were a couple things in your presentation that really had me thinking about the story of healthcare. And when it comes to data, I think we fooled ourselves in previous years that somehow we were the objective arbiters of things. Someone definitely has to be an arbiter of truth. I think that's needed more now than ever. Someone has to say, up is up and down is down, gravity is gravity. And usually persons who are most respectful and objective with the data, that's the most true. But I think the other thing that we've learned in recent years is that, in collecting and sharing data, we're actually sharing a story.

[Dr. Alika Lafontaine appears full screen.]

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: And we can't ignore that in how we shape things.

And, I think in healthcare, we were probably the biggest violators of this rule. We pretended like we were objective, uninvolved passengers on this journey of how the healthcare system grew. And as a result, we're in this mess that we are right now, where folks who come here to immigrate, who are skilled in areas, only two in five work.

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj and Anil Arora are shown on stage.

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: And I think on an individual level, that's a travesty. I think on a system level, increasingly, people just know that doesn't make any sense.

And so, how can we explain this in less than three minutes? Let me try. Okay, <laugh>. So, in the 1950s and 60s, healthcare was going to your local hospital or clinic.

[Dr. Alika Lafontaine appears full screen.]

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: If you couldn't get care there, you were out of luck. There was no travelling to a different town. There was no flying across the country. There was just that one place. So, as demand grew, and as the system started to come into its own, we started replicating those clinics and hospitals. Really just creating mirror images. So, if there were 10 people that worked at one hospital, there'd be 10 in whatever we built next. And we spread these across the country.

Eventually we ran into a resource constraint, where we didn't have enough people with the skills that we needed to provide those services, and we ran out of space and equipment. And so, as a result in the late 90s, we segmented things. Our hospitals went from, you could get trauma if you broke your leg and you went to a hospital, you could only go to one hospital in town, versus the five different hospitals that used to be able to treat you. Over time, we started to run into resource limits with that as well, so then we leaned into technology. And so, we started adopting these different methods of doing things faster, more efficient, or tracking, or all these other things.

Now those three things are actually the source of all of our problems right now. So, we scaled at a rate where we fragmented the system and we don't even know where our resource assets are. You know, we have 92,000, which I think is a good number, but when you look at some of the other data sets, they count folks who don't even live in the country. I sit on a board with Chris Hadfield, and he was saying, "I was in space, and they were counting me as a family physician that could provide care in the area that I live in." <laugh>

[Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj and Anil Arora are shown on stage.

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: Which I guess maybe you could do with virtual care, but <laugh>

Althia Raj: It would be pretty expensive.

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: <Laugh> Very expensive, very expensive. And so, we continue to approach things in the same way that we always have, regardless of what the data's telling us.

So, we have a limitation in OR space because we don't have enough people to people those places. What do we do? We go build new places. We create public private partnerships to create more physical space when it's actually the people that are the problem.

Our information systems haven't kept up with what's going on. We don't actually know within a catchment of five hospitals, like in downtown Toronto, where our bottlenecks are: which OR has a shortage of nurses; which one has a shortage of anesthesiologists; which one has a shortage of surgeons or cleaning folks, or all these different people who are members of these teams? And so, I think that in hearing the other panelists and their comments on different things, the running theme is that we are still leaning into the same ways that we thought about things. So, what are some things that are different?

[Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.]

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: Well, Chantal was talking about how this idea that privacy is paramount over everything is actually not true. People don't mind having their identity known if they get some value out of it. But what's the problem with data sharing in healthcare right now? You're not actually asking people whether or not they want data. You're asking stewards of data, who control this aggregated data, whether or not it's okay for them to share. And they don't feel that it's worth the risk.

So, they actually don't care about the value add. You know, Alberta Health Services, which I work in, and I have a lot of affinity for, it's the largest holder of health data probably in North America right now. It is impossible to get access to data for research that would lead to benefit to small cohorts of folks, people with rare diseases or other things. And it's because it's a stewardship model versus a value-based exchange model.

When we talk about what's going on with the world and where the behaviour of capital going to where it's treated best. I mean, why are people leaving the healthcare system? It's because they're not treated well. But we don't measure any of that. We measure throughput, we measure how much things cost per widget, whether or not we can do that faster at a lower cost. But we don't bother to ask, is it terrible where you work? When was the last time you slept?

[Dr. Alika Lafontaine appears full screen.]

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: Why are you crying in the hallway? <Laugh> All of these questions we're not asking. And it reminds me of an experience I had very early on in my training where I was walking on one side with an epidemiologist, and on the other side was an elder in the community. This is like a setup for a joke, <Laugh> but we're walking past this area that has a lot of persons who are homeless. And the epidemiologist is telling you about the history and all these other things. And the elder turns to me and says, "I don't disagree with anything that they said, but the system does not believe those people matter unless they're counted and put into a study." When you can actually walk over to those people and ask them directly whether or not things are better.

And so, I think in the story of data, we have to get a lot more specific about what are we trying to get out at the other side and just acknowledge that the world has changed, the rules that we're building our decisions on were made for a world that no longer exists. I think in the story of healthcare that we try and share at the CMA, the two things that we're trying to aim for is access for patients and healthy working environments for providers. And I think data really helps us to tell that story in a different way.

[Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.]

Taki Sarantakis: Absolutely. And we're going to come back to data and healthcare and aging in Canada. Anil was telling us how the population of people who are 80 and over, the big consumers of healthcare,

[Taki Sarantakis appears full screen.]

Taki Sarantakis:  is growing more dramatically than the rest of the population. And there are people in this audience who know very well what you're speaking of. During Covid, one of the biggest challenges, and it was unspoken, but one of the biggest challenges was simply getting data. The federal government and the provinces and hospitals getting data at the right time when they needed it.

Now, Althia, I left you to last because you're the professional. You're the one we see on TV.

[Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.]

Taki Sarantakis:  You're the one that knows how to handle sitting there patiently for seven, eight minutes going, I disagree with that <laugh>. We see you on TV, but your day job is writing at the Toronto Star and that's one of Canada's biggest newspapers, in one of the world's great multicultural cities.

Tell us a little bit about the immigration story that Anil talked to us about, because it plays out differentially across the country.

[Althia Raj appears full screen. Text on screen: Columnist, Toronto Star / Columnist, Toronto Star.]

Taki Sarantakis:  Whether you're in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, or in the rural part of Canada. And as Anil was going through that, I was a little bit worried that you kind of started to see two Canadas emerging. And where your postal code was that determined not only your quality of life, but largely what you believe and what you don't believe.

Althia Raj: And what your future can be. Yes, I want to say from the outset, I thought it was so refreshing to hear you speak. And it made me realise,

[Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.]

Althia Raj: we don't hear our political leaders at all talk about the challenge ahead in the same way, in a serious way. And so nobody is trying to address it, because they are not speaking about it. <Applause> <laugh>.

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: I'm clapping for Anil. <Laugh>.

Althia Raj: Yes! Do you want to run?

Anil Arora: No. That's a very clear answer.

Althia Raj: So, a few things I want to say about immigration and the challenge and the opportunities that you laid out for us. One of the things that I worry about a lot is polarization and division and how to make sure that the fabric of society continues to knit us together. And we're seeing that increasingly fall apart.

[Althia Raj appears full screen.]

Althia Raj: When I started, when I was like a baby reporter, one of my first interviews with was with Jason Kenny, who was then the immigration minister. I was working at the Ottawa Sun at the time, and he said, "Canada is not a hotel". I think that was the front page of the paper that day. But he's right. We cannot have communities living in silos, not integrating with the rest of society, not feeling like the rest of the society cares about them and wants to see them succeed.

And that message, I think you see it now resonating in Pierre Poilievre, the conservative leader's discourse when he talks about foreign credentials - which Goldy talked about - people who feel left out of the system. And we have to make sure going forward that people feel like they're an equal partner and we all want to see everybody succeed.

Back to the postal codes. I worry, obviously I'm in a cultural industry, I worry about the lack of cultural institutions that help talk and speak to that story of Canada, and where we want the country to go, and who's represented, and how we can all be included in that. And conflict here, obviously, I'm on the CBC and I care about the CBC, and I want the CBC to do well, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the CBC who is telling those stories. It just has been that in the 50s and 60s and 70s, it was the CBC telling those stories, probably up until the 2000s.

You see there was polling by Abacus last week that suggests that most young people see no value in the CBC. The Generation Z has no interest in the CBC. And that goes to where we get our media and who's telling us stories. And I think that also has to be part of the story and the challenge going forward because increasingly, people are taking a siloed view about where they're getting their information. I'm very worried about the future of news media, traditional old media, I guess. But I don't know that we'll still be around in 25 years.

[Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj and Anil Arora are shown on stage.

Althia Raj: And so, you compound the fact that there may not be professional media organizations, the way we think about them at the moment, in the future that our society might explode, and we didn't even talk about climate migration, but I feel like that will be another wave as well. So, we will have all these stresses in the system and who is going to knit us together?

And I say this because you see political advantage from political parties trying to actually sow division and create an "us versus them" dynamic. Obviously, we saw it in the United States, but even in legislation, like Bill 21 and Bill 96 in Quebec, and the rhetoric that we've seen in the last election from the [INAUDIBLE] government. So, I think we need to be really careful about who's telling that story, and demanding better from our political leaders to make sure that we're all included in that conversation.

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.

Taki Sarantakis: Yes. So, you said something that was really interesting. In a way, you said that our institutions used to knit us together, and they don't seem to be knitting us together anymore as well as they did in the past. And I want to test a little thesis out here. Now, after the last election, you mentioned the P word, politicians, which we're all very allergic to in this audience, <laugh>.

[Taki Sarantakis appears full screen.]

Taki Sarantakis:  But at the risk of getting fired, let's talk a little bit about it. <Laugh>. You wrote a great article after the last election in the Toronto Star about - and I hope one day you turn it into a book - but you wrote a great article. And what really caught me on that article was the role of data.

[Althia Raj appears full screen.]

Taki Sarantakis: And you were talking about - and it's not a secret: advertisers do it; politicians do it; universities do it; everybody on Facebook, Twitter does it - micro-targeting.

[Taki Sarantakis appears full screen.]

Taki Sarantakis:  And in the past, when we didn't have data, we used to try to appeal to Canadians writ large. And the old saying was, "The votes are in the middle". But today the votes kind of aren't in the middle. The votes are kind of at the margin, because you now have the capacity to micro-target somebody in any one of the 338 ridings and not pay attention to Canada per se, but to pay attention to Bob and Mill and Mary and who's going to go vote.

Maybe tell us a little bit about micro-targeting in politics. And then I'm going to have Anil talk a little bit, maybe take that so that we can be fired together. <Laugh>

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.

Taki Sarantakis: Maybe talk a little bit about some of the down, and not the dark side of data, but some of the ways that you can take data and make it to a point of self-interest that it becomes defeatist in a pan-Canadian context.

Althia Raj: I'm not sure I'm going to say anything to this crowd that you don't already know, but –

[Althia Raj appears full screen.]

Althia Raj: Actually, let me start. A few weeks ago. I think it was two weeks ago, the Prime Minister was speaking at a town hall. And he was asked a question by a student, and he said one of his greatest regrets was on electoral reform. How he didn't use the opportunity that he had to bring forward a preferential ballot. And I thought, wow. <laugh>

And it didn't really get in the media, but we spent so much time talking about electoral reform, and it was always about a PR system. And then he admitted that actually when he decided to scrap his promise at that June press conference several years ago now, that - well, he always wanted a PR system, he always wanted a preferential ballot, but he never told anybody that that was actually what he wanted to do. He never tried to get the committee members to study a preferential ballot.

And a preferential ballot is like the way the Conservatives and the Liberals pick their leader. It's like, who would you rather have in your riding? Okay, I would rather have the New Democrats, so I would put them one. And maybe the Liberals would be number two, and the Conservatives would be three and PPC number four, for example. And the Greens, I guess, number four. Or the Block, I guess. Whatever, it doesn't matter. <Laugh>.

And a preferential ballot allows - it forces candidates to actually be nicer to each other because you are going after the same group of people. And yes, you don't have to put 2, 3, 4, 5 on your ballot, but it encourages the tone of the conversation to be more civil. And that's why, frankly, you see political parties use it in their own elections because it's the way to get to a middle ground candidate. Most people will have a choice that is acceptable to them.

We don't, obviously, have that system with first past the post. And increasingly what we see is that political parties don't try to convince you to vote for them. They do not waste the time and the resources because it's actually kind of expensive to go out and to convince a voter that is unlikely to vote for them to vote for you, so they focus on the voters that they know are more likely to vote for you, and then they go out and make sure that those people are informed about the vote, that they send cars to get them to the polling station to vote for them.

And they try to move them on many different issues. And throughout the campaign, especially through social media, we see them test different messages to the same group of voters to find an issue that will move them. If you said that you like climate change, you'll get a bunch of different ads that push you towards climate change. And they'll use different ridings as mini laboratories to test different messages, and then they will push out their message.

And increasingly we're seeing messages based on identity and values, as opposed to public policy issues. We've always had wedge issues because, frankly, it's successful. It makes you hot and bothered and you're like, "Ugh, guns, I hate guns. I'm going to go vote against guns." Or "I hate abortion. I'm going to go vote against abortion." And it actually brings in the money too. Or the fact that we are heavily dependent now, we don't have the per vote subsidy for political parties. Those hot button issues mobilize the base. They get more money; the volunteers get mobilized.

So, it's very successful, but we don't have this kind of coherent message that would be more appealing to a general audience. And we're seeing the loss of that, I feel, increasingly.

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.

Taki Sarantakis: And I think what Althia is saying, and I'm going to paraphrase you, whack me if I'm wrong. But I think what you're saying is data, data, data. And in some ways political parties came to understand the power of data far faster than some of the people in our institution.

[Taki Sarantakis appears full screen.]

Taki Sarantakis:  Because political parties, whether they're red, blue, orange, purple, yellow, what have you, they need data. And they need data to be successful, and they need data to win. And the fact that they're very sophisticated in data is something that shouldn't surprise us.

Now I'm down to our last five minutes.

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.

Taki Sarantakis: I feel like we're just starting, but I'm going to go in reverse order. Give us a last - you're talking to a group of largely public servants; you're also going to be talking to nerds on CPAC when we rebroadcast this at some point later - give us a little bit of wisdom on data.

Anil, I'm going to leave you to the end. Give us a little bit of wisdom on data to the public service and to the nerds that will be watching this on CPAC one day. I'm going to start the opposite order. So, Chantal.

Chantal Bernier: Break the silos.

Taki Sarantakis: Break the silos.

Chantal Bernier: That's what I would say. Apparently my microphone does not work. Apologies.

Taki Sarantakis: Well, you broke the microphone. <Laugh> So, then we'll break the silos.

Chantal Bernier: So, break the silos is what I would say. I am so in agreement with Alika.

Just this morning I received an email from a police service who has asked me to help them share data, therefore integrate privacy into data sharing. Privacy is not an impediment, it's a modality. That would be my message.

Taki Sarantakis: Goldy, what would you tell us about data?

Goldy Hyder: Two things. One is we have more information, more content, more data than probably we've ever had before.

[Goldy Hyder appears full screen.]

Goldy Hyder: And we're dumber. <Laugh> And that's a problem. And the reason we're dumber is we've grown up in an era now that is allowed to talk about alternate facts. We have an entire constituency of people out there who will tell you on the day that there's a pouring rain, that it's the brightest sunny day, and it'll be reported as a bright sunny day. And they will believe it, and they will question the validity of the rain being shown. And that is a bizarre world to live in.

But I will say, never waste a good crisis. I never waste a crisis. I get that crises aren't good, but we've gone through a few things: whether it was Covid; whether it's the war; whether it's the issues around climate change, where those of us who are in the business are saying, the facts are still the facts. So, recently the Prime Minister said, "Oh, I realised that I was wrong about nuclear." Well, we've been saying nuclear has to be a part of the mix to get net zero. Our facts never changed. Those were always the facts.

And so, these crises that are coming about are reintroducing the opportunity to bring back the facts to the centre of the room, because you're not entitled to your own facts.

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.

Taki Sarantakis: Althia.

Althia Raj: Don't forget that the humans are the ones behind the data.

Taki Sarantakis: Dr. Lafontaine.

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: It's always tough to go fourth because all the good stuff has been taken. <Laugh>

[Dr. Alika Lafontaine appears full screen.]

Dr. Alika Lafontaine: I would say that data does not survive observation in the same form. As soon as you look at data it changes. And when you're using data, you're on two parts of a continuum. You are either creating space for people to fill that data with their own meaning, or you are helping people shape meaning from the data in the way that you want them to take it.

And so, be very, very acutely aware of where you are on that continuum and tie it back to what you're actually trying to accomplish. Because at the end of the day, I think one of the things that drives me crazy about the polarized conversations that we have nowadays, they're not pragmatic. We're not actually trying to achieve anything. And I think that that's really at the core of why things are spiralling down.

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.

Taki Sarantakis: Now, Anil, I'm about to give you the last word as the 2023 Manion lecturer. You have just heard from the 2024 Manion lecturer. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So, Dr. Alika Lafontaine will be giving a lecture next year on healthcare. <Applause> But before we go to 2024, let's finish 2023.

[Anil Arora appears full screen.]

Anil Arora: Well, I think a lot has been said that I absolutely agree with. One is: volume does not automatically equate to quality. You can have all the data you want and it's not going to solve the problem for you. Yes, a lot of times it's the human that's the missing link, or somebody who's trying to manipulate things. And I would say being a wary, informed consumer I think is really important.

And so, if you go to organizations from which the data are not telling you the quality, in all its different dimensions, and they're not being transparent about how it is that they went about putting it together, don't trust it. Be a little skeptical, ask that second and third question, don't just go for it.

And yes, new technologies which are just huge vacuum cleaners of new data. I would say a healthy dose of skepticism there as well. Because we are going to take all the biases that were there in the data, if we don't understand that the standards, the definitions on which they were collected, and we're just going to pump them through new technologies, what do you think is going to happen? We're just going to exacerbate those kinds of issues. So, I do think the laws and the frameworks and the practices that are being put in place are going to be absolutely crucial.

And the last point I'll make is: trust is everything. I think a lot of the panelists here talked about trust. And the trust only comes about when we have good ethical frameworks. We have frameworks like necessity and proportionality. And where we haven't looked at privacy and confidentiality as somehow tradeoffs, but they're integrated into how it is that we're driving outcomes

[Taki Sarantakis, Goldy Hyder, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Althia Raj, Anil Arora and Chantal Bernier are shown on stage.

Anil Arora: that matter for Canadians. And I think data is a key piece.

[Video fades to black.]