StatCan Blog, January 2014
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Released: 2014-01-22
Celebrating a statistical centennial
Statistics Canada is getting ready to celebrate a statistical centennial.
In 1918, the House of Commons was sitting in the building that today houses the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa — a 1916 fire had devastated Centre Block, forcing MPs into temporary lodgings — when it passed the Statistics Act. Under this Act, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics came into being, and the story of today's Statistics Canada began.
The January 2014 edition of the StatCan Blog looks at the agency's progression from a local office of 123 employees, using punch cards and electric tabulating machinery, to a cutting edge national institution with several thousand dedicated employees spread across the country.
It highlights the contributions of people that helped build the agency, like Robert H. Coats, the first Dominion Statistician. It was Coats' vision that started moving statistics away from dry dusty numbers, interesting to only a select few, toward a complex and comprehensive national statistical system.
Today, that vision is carried on by Chief Statistician, Wayne R. Smith, who talks about not only what has been learned from Statistics Canada's history, but also its commitment to remain world-class amid the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Contact information
For more information, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca).
To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Penny Stuart (613-951-2005; penny.stuart@statcan.gc.ca), Communications Division.
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