1. Rescue the poor lost bunnies!!
Data Question Bunnies
Rescue the poor lost bunnies!!
With Carolyn DeLorey and Julie Marcoux

2. Statistics Canada's servers are powered by magical bunnies.
FUN FACT
Statistics Canada's servers are powered by magical bunnies.

3. Illustration of a Stats Can employee feeding answers to data questions to the magical bunnies to keep them happy and productive.

4. Help restore the lost data bunnies to Stats Can's servers!!!
During a recent server outage caused by a disgruntled bunny (cause unknown), some bunnies unfortunately escaped from their magical holding pens got lost.
Help restore the lost data bunnies to Stats Can's servers!!!

5. Some of my colleagues were headed towards the North Pole
WITNESS INTERVIEW
I have a contact that lives over there. I‘ll put you two in touch if you answer the following question…
Some of my colleagues were headed towards the North Pole
Can you obtain a number for the population of Mi’kmaq people in Canada from Stats Canada?

6. 2011 Census of Population
Mi’kmaq is listed under the following questions:
Detailed mother tongue
Detailed language spoken most often at home
Detailed other language spoken regularly at home
Mi’kmaq is listed under the following questions:
Detailed mother tongue
Detailed language spoken most often at home
Detailed other language spoken regularly at home
The number of people who speak the language is not the same as the population of the group.
Need to look for the ethnic origin question.

7. 2011 Census of Population
The number of people who speak the language is not the same as the population of the group.
You need to look for the ethnic origin question.
Mi’kmaq is listed under the following questions:
Detailed mother tongue
Detailed language spoken most often at home
Detailed other language spoken regularly at home
The number of people who speak the language is not the same as the population of the group.
Need to look for the ethnic origin question.

8. 2011 NHS
Ethnic origin question: North American Aboriginal origins is only broken down as far as First Nations, Inuit, and Métis
Ethnic origin question:
North American Aboriginal origins is only broken down as far as First Nations, Inuit, and Métis

9. 2011 NHS Documentation
Q17 (Ethnic or cultural origins of person’s ancestors) allows for specific origins to be listed and gives Mi’kmaq as an example, however this level of detail is not provided in StatCan profiles on the website or in the PUMF on Nesstar.
Q17 (Ethnic or cultural origins of person’s ancestors) allows for specific origins to be listed and gives Mi’kmaq as an example, however this level of detail is not provided in StatCan profiles on the website or in the PUMF on Nesstar.

10. Response from subject matter: “We do not have that specific information available via our standard products online. It may be available however, through a custom data request.”
Plus: other helpful leads from members of DLI community 

11. Office of Aboriginal Affairs: NS
Facts Sheets page links to Population counts for Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia (2014) and total for Atlantic Region
Facts Sheets page links to Population counts for Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia (2014) and total for Atlantic Region (Source: Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada Indian Registry System)

12. Aboriginal Affairs: NB
Individual community links lead to Indigenous & Northern Affairs Canada’s First Nation Profiles, which includes registered population counts. Need to use a separate NB Mi’kmaq First Nations map to identify which communities are Mi’kmaq.
Individual community links lead to Indigenous & Northern Affairs Canada’s First Nation Profiles, which includes registered population counts
Need to use a separate NB Mi’kmaq First Nations map to identify which communities are Mi’kmaq
Information is not consistent across different provinces
I would leave this up to the researcher to investigate

13. Aboriginal Affairs: NB
Information is not consistent across different provinces.
I would leave this up to the researcher to investigate.
Individual community links lead to Indigenous & Northern Affairs Canada’s First Nation Profiles, which includes registered population counts
Need to use a separate NB Mi’kmaq First Nations map to identify which communities are Mi’kmaq
Information is not consistent across different provinces
I would leave this up to the researcher to investigate

14. Indigenous & Northern Affairs Canada First Nations Profiles
Can search by First Nation (community) name, but the word “Mi’kmaq” is not present in all Mi’kmaq community names
Can search by First Nation (community) name, but the word “Mi’kmaq” is not present in all Mi’kmaq community names

15. Indigenous & Northern Affairs Canada Regional Offices
Atlantic Region has an Aboriginal Communities map showing Bands and identifying which are Mi’kmaq. Selecting each leads to population count for both on- and off-reserve.
Quebec Region has a similar map showing Micmac bands.
Not all Regional Offices have this level of detail.
Atlantic Region has an Aboriginal Communities map showing Bands and identifying which are Mi’kmaq. Selecting each leads to population count for both on- and off-reserve.
Quebec Region has a similar map showing Micmac bands.
Not all Regional Offices have this level of detail.

16. INAC: Atlantic Region
Are other regions relevant for Mi’kmaq population? That’s up to the researcher to decide.
Are other regions relevant for Mi’kmaq population? That’s up to the researcher to decide.

17. WITNESS INTERVIEW
Some bunnies have joined my crew on the good ship The Great Carrot.
They will only come back if you make it worth their while…

18. Pretend that I'm working on a thesis about food capacity in Nova Scotia. What is the average cost of meals at home versus meals at restaurants?
How many grocery stores - Sobey's, No Frills, Save Easy, Atlantic Supersotre, Pete's Fruitiques, Costco, Walmart, and Foodland – are there in NS?

19. CANSIM tables and about household spending in Canada gets us total yearly household spending on food purchased from stores versus food purchased from restaurants for 2010 to 2015.
I would suggest starting with CANSIM tables and about household spending in Canada. This will get you the total yearly household spending on food purchased from stores versus food purchased from restaurants for 2010 to Table also includes broad categories of food purchased from stores (i.e. you want to know how much people in Nova Scotia spent on bakery products),
This table gives broad categories of food purchased from stores (i.e. you want to know how much people in a province spent on bakery products).

20. The most detail you get for restaurants in either case is meals versus snacks and beverages.
while table has very detailed food purchases (i.e. how much was spent on cookies versus bread?). The most detail you get for restaurants in either case is meals versus snacks and beverages.
When working with CANSIM tables, it's important to click on "Add/Remove data" to reveal additional options. It's possible to download just the data on the screen to Excel, or to download the entire dataset (not necessary in this case, but come talk to me if you ever want to do this with Stat Can data because I will suggest a better method than downloading the CSV). Please note that links to CANSIM tables often break, so if that happens to you, just Google 'CANSIM' and the table numbers shared above.
This table gives very detailed food purchases (i.e. how much was spent on cookies versus bread?).

21. I took a quick look – not expecting to find average costs, but wanted to see what variables are available.
Was able to tell the student that Microdata from the Survey of Household Spending is available for 2009 and earlier in the DLI Collection.
Allows us to create our own tables from variables available in the survey. For example, we could create a table of restaurant versus food spending by age, or income, or gender…
Microdata from the survey is available – lets us create our own tables. For example, we could create a table of restaurant versus food spending by age, or income, or gender…

22. Thank you Google!
As far as I can tell, there's not much out there – mostly informal attempts by news agencies or bloggers to price out the cost of a restaurant meal if we were to make it ourselves at home.
I'm not a statistician, so I can't give advice about methodology. But, it seems to me that if you knew how many meals Canadians eat at a restaurant in a year, you could use data from the CANSIM tables to broadly estimate the cost of a restaurant meal versus a home meal.
This 2010 report from the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association from a Ipsos survey says that on average, in Atlantic Canada, we eat at a restaurant twice a week…so about 104 meals in a year versus 988 home meals?

23. Browsed Stats Can's NAICS classification for more details.
Knew we would need NAICS classification for number of grocery stores.
Started with US Census Search (easy to search)
Browsed Stats Can's NAICS classification for more details.
Searched the NAICS Classification through the United States Census Bureau (easy to search).
Used codes found to browse Stats Can's NAICS classification for grocery stores. Discussed descriptions with student.

24. That‘s it! 6-digit NAICS counts of businesses are available in Beyond 20/20 WDS!!!
6-digit NAICS counts of businesses are available, including counts of grocery stores.

25. "I'm having trouble finding statistics on the amount of freelance journalists in Canada and financial data about them too (mainly how much they make). Could you help point me in the right direction? I just feel like every time I type something into the databases I don't get anything relevant to my story."

26. Checking NHS tables
“When looking at the NHS data tables for the Education and Labour topic, you can search for “Class of Worker”. You’ll find several tables that contain the number of people by occupation using either the National Occupational Classification (NOC) or the North American Industry Classification (NAIC).
For these tables, you’ll probably want to stick with the NOC – you can find more precise numbers for the NAICS using my next suggestion. Journalists are found under NOC 5123.
For example, in this table (link might not work – Stat Can is terrible with dynamic links – the above explanations should enable you to find a similar table) you can find occupations by NOC including journalists. Then you simply need to check the numbers under “self employed” for “class of worker”, and you have a good estimate of the number of independent journalists in Canada. You can also find this data by province, census divisions, and other geographies.”

27. The NHS data tables save us once again!
Both the National Occupational Classification (NOC) or the North American Industry Classification (NAIC) are searchable.
Things are looking good!

28. Canadian Industry Statistics
“The NAICS code that comes closest to what you’re looking for is probably NAICS Read the description carefully. This category contains freelance journalists and independent columnists. However, it also contains independent playwrights and independent songwriters…
If you’re still interested, you should take a look at the first table on this page of statistics by establishments from Canadian Industry Statistics. There’s a column for “Non- Employers/Indeterminate”. That’s where the independent and freelance people will be counted.”

29. I was able to search for a very detailed NAICS code
Looks good!
Canadian Industry Statistics has some interesting tables.

30. I always do a search in Google!
Freelance Journalist Wages
“Unfortunately, wages for freelance journalists aren’t available through Statistic Canada – to protect privacy, they’ve kept wage information in very broad categories. This article explains that the Professional Writers Association of Canada did a survey in 2006 that has some interesting data. Nicole Cohen, author of the article shared above, published a thesis in 2013 about freelance writers and the media. She even did her own survey (look around page 161 for some good numbers). You can access Negotiating precarious cultural work: Freelance writers and collective organization in media industries using ProQuest Dissertation and Theses.”

31. A Possible workflow
Quickly check sources that are already familiar to you.
Become familiar with the Canadian census, the National Household Survey, and a few Stat Can surveys in your discipline.
Become familiar with your local data portal and quickly check relevant links. If possible, do a variable search in your data discovery tool.
Search for your question in Google and explore the results.
When searching for Canadian data, use Google results to navigate to relevant branches of government, to the relevant Departments and/or to the relevant Stat Can surveys.
If searching for Canadian data, look at tables and sources of information in Stat Can’s subject portal.
Ask your data librarian for help…if you are the data librarian, ask the DLI list for help.

32. Do you have any questions….about the data bunnies…or anything?