This Magazine: Don't just preserve the long-form census. Set its data free

I suspect you already know why I think scrapping the long-form census is a terrible idea. Good data is good for society. Done right, statistical research keeps us all honest, forcing us to interact with the world as it actually is, rather than imagining ourselves as part of a reality that is personally or politically convenient. Survey research is plagued with selection bias, and the only institution with the power to gather high-quality data for social science is Statistics Canada. The government’s purported privacy concerns with the long form are justified by a set of preposterous (and ideologically motivated) myths.

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This Magazine: Why journalists of the future must be math-literate

A year of layoffs and anaemic ad buys has given journalists an excuse to turn inwards like never before. By now, even folks outside the industry must be sick of hearing about the Future of Journalism — my own fervent hope is to never read another article aboutsocial media for reporters. But I do think that an instinct for self-improvement is useful, so I’m going to add something else to the agenda — call it a Margin of Error manifesto. I’d like to talk about statistical literacy.

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