Canada is facing both a climate crisis and a housing crisis, and they are interconnected. Choices we make about our homes impact the environment: their location and how much we need to use a car to get around, the heat source that they use, the materials used in their construction. At the same time, the climate impacts our homes: when severe weather strikes and causes damage to our homes, we have no choice but to rebuild, and even if we escape unscathed, we still have to decide how much to change our lifestyles to adapt to a changing climate. Andrew DeFazio, CMHC Climate Change Advisor, joins us to explore how we can climate-proof our housing strategy and home-proof our climate strategy.

It used to be that Statistics Canada didn’t measure poverty. Not exactly. Poverty is complex, and there wasn't a single definition that everyone agreed on. So while StatCan did measure low income and other income inequality indicators, it didn't measure poverty per se. That is, until 2018, when the government chose to use the Market Basket Measure, or MBM, as Canada's Official Poverty Line. That means that the government now uses the MBM to track its poverty reduction targets.   But something strange happened during the pandemic: in 2020 the poverty rate fell. And it fell quite a bit. In fact, the poverty rate dropped in one year almost as much as it had in the four preceding years. But why? What happened? Will the poverty rate continue to fall? And what happens if it hits zero? How would health outcomes change? Education outcomes? People's general happiness and well-being?  Has there ever been a time and place in Canada where the poverty rate was zero? The closest may be the Mincome Experiment of the 1970s in Manitoba.   Many Canadians have never heard of this guaranteed income experiment, but it offers a glimpse at what eliminating poverty might look like.  To learn more, we spoke with Burton Gustajtis an economist from Statistics Canada, Evelyn Forget, a Professor of Economics and Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba and Kevin Milligan, a Professor of Economics in the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia.

Sylvia Ostry was appointed Canada’s first and only female Chief Statistician in 1972, but she didn’t get there by playing by the rules. She was ambitious but grew up in a world where many thought that it was shameful to be female and have a career. We’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sylvia Ostry’s appointment as chief statistician. In this episode of Eh Sayers, featuring interviews with her sons, Adam Ostry and Jonathan Ostry, we are pleased to introduce you to this remarkable woman and to share with you eight pieces of advice inspired by her life.

Over the last few years we have seen plenty of service disruptions, closures of services and delays. But what is the real cause of these disruptions and what is the supply chain that everyone is talking about?

Virtual healthcare was a rarity before COVID-19 but immediately after the pandemic hit in March 2020, Canadians were forced to rethink how they access healthcare. Dr. Gigi Osler joins us to explore the barriers to virtual healthcare, the changes we saw during the pandemic, and what’s being done to make virtual care permanent, rather than just a temporary COVID-19 measure.

In this episode, we turn a critical eye to the ways that cognitive bias risks perpetuating systemic racism. Statistics are supposed to accurately reflect the world around us, but are all data created equal?

Check out what's coming up in Season 2 of Eh Sayers and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing.

Our guest, Taylor Mitchell, an economist at Statistics Canada, speaks with us about why you should care about inflation, its impact on different population groups and the cost of living.

The last episode of Season 1 of Eh Sayers focusses on the growing market of gigs and their place in an ever-changing landscape of job flexibility and/or instability.

In this episode we talk with Maegen Black, director of the Canadian Crafts Federation, about the arts and crafts movement across Canada, its renaissance and its necessity.