labradore

"We can't allow things that are inaccurate to stand." — The Word of Our Dan, February 19, 2008.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Lies, damn lies, and damner lies

The PC Party Bull Sheet contains the following howler:

A Progressive Conservative government in its second term will:
demand that the Government of Canada situate more federal offices and jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador, which has fewer per capita than any other province
[Emphasis added; original emphasis removed.]

That assertion is blatantly wrong. Whoever insisted on its presence in the platform document is stupid, or a liar, or possibly both.

The following table* shows the population of Canada and the ten provinces, the number of federal civil servants employed in each, and what that works out to as a percent of the total population (= per capita × 100)
             Pop.     fed.jobs   As % of pop.

PE 138,571 3,776 2.72%
NS 933,923 24,277 2.60
NB 748,997 15,036 2.01
NL 508,832 7,357 1.45
MB 1,179,026 16,944 1.44
ON 12,706,493 162,807 1.28
Canada 32,701,551 395,057 1.21
QC 7,663,823 82,271 1.07
SK 986,886 9,868 1.00
BC 4,324,796 38,795 0.90
AB 3,406,407 28,534 0.84

Newfoundland and Labrador does not have "fewer [federal jobs] per capita than any other province."

In fact, Newfoundland and Labrador has more federal jobs per capita, not only than the all-Canada figure, but more per-capita than all but three other provinces. And that includes more than Ontario or Quebec.

What other lies, or stupidity, or both, lurk in the Bull Sheet?

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* Population from CANSIM table 051-0005; employment from CANSIM table 183-0002; data for 12 months ending March 2007, annualized average.

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