Finance Committee on March 31st, 2022

[Greg Peterson]

We've been doing work throughout the pandemic to look at whether or not the different consumption patterns that Canadians have had through the pandemic have had an impact on prices. We started producing an alternate CPI measure based on changing consumer patterns earlier on in the pandemic, and we continue that exercise now.

As we've done that analysis we've found that there's no considerable difference in CPI based on the changing consumption patterns.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

It's interesting how you cite changing consumer behaviours based on COVID-19. Obviously some people never used to shop online and have it shipped directly to their home. That changed.

To what extent does Statistics Canada take into account online purchases by Canadians?

[Greg Peterson]

I would turn that more specific question to Ms. Ertl.

[Heidi Ertl]

I'm going to ask Taylor to be ready as well.

We have definitely evolved in terms of our collection of price information. We are no longer solely collecting retail prices. In fact, since the onset of the pandemic, we are collecting online prices for most of our commodities to the extent that that's captured as part of the consumer behaviour. We know that has definitely been an impact from the pandemic, and that's the reason we are web scraping and collecting point-of-sale data. We also have delivery fees included in the CPI, so we track it in that way as well.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I have one last—

[Heidi Ertl]

Taylor, do you have anything to add?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I have one last question that I forgot to ask in regard to housing, so maybe Mr. Peterson would like to answer this.

Is the current treatment of owned accommodation in the consumer price index still appropriate, considering that housing units are increasingly being used as an investment vehicle? That's a theme we've heard over and over—houses aren't always used for living in.

[Greg Peterson]

Yes, and I think that's exactly why the methodology that we've adopted is appropriate. In the CPI, again, we're not measuring the cost Canadians face in purchasing a house; we measure the cost Canadians face in owning that house. For sure, I completely agree. I think the methodology we use is entirely appropriate in light of that.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I appreciate that you were here for it.

I'll just go back to Mr. Blaikie. Thank you for the time. Yes, we are utilizing Statistics Canada's knowledge and expertise, and I'm sure we're putting some good people to work on some of the projects we've had, but you can't put a price on democracy, so I want to thank Statistics Canada. I really do want to see what it will do with some of the changes in April.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Albas. The time does go by very fast, as you can see.

To all of our witnesses today from Statistics Canada, you have many fans here in the room, and we understand the great and important work that you do, how it helps the government, our economy and Canadians as a whole. We really appreciate that, and how you'll be informing our study, so much so that you've been repeat witnesses. You've come back again. It looks like you may even want to be invited back again to our committee, although we know that you have a lot on your plate and a lot of important work to do.

We want to thank you on behalf of all the members, the clerk, the analysts, the interpreters and everybody here at committee.

I want to go back to Mr. Blaikie about the time we are allocating to the end of our meeting on Monday for an in camera meeting. The clerk was asking me if we would do that in camera.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I'm happy with either option, Mr. Chair. I don't have a preference.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay, we'll set up that time for the in camera meeting.

The meeting is adjourned.