Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Let them eat a non-representative sample of cake

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, October 21, 2010 10:31am - 0 Comments

Statistics Canada celebrates in style.

The first World Statistics Day was celebrated at Statscan on Wednesday with guest speakers, free coffee and enough vanilla cake to feed 400 of the agency’s 6,000 employees. Statistically speaking, that means 93 per cent of staff had to go without.

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  • Geiseric

    Undoubtedly the sample size was derived mathematically and had the entire staff rolling in the aisles. Kind of like accountants joking about keeping their office door on the left.

  • LaxAtlDfwYow

    For such celebrations, the Long Form Cake is mandatory.

  • gottabesaid

    It's also important, perhaps relieving, to note that no member of StatsCan was compelled or coerced into partaking… the cake consumption was entirely voluntary.

    • Anon 001

      Yes, but the fact that they knew how many employees did partake, or how many could, is the direct result of mandatory employee registration and identification.

      • gottabesaid

        Those statisticians… always keeping track of everybody… even themselves. Sick.

      • Mike T.

        See, other systems already in place give the same information! We don't need statistics! And we save on cake!

  • Rudy

    Tony Clement was ensured that 400 peices of cake would be sufficient for the number of employees at StatsCan. To assume everyone wanted cake would be intrusive and dracconian.

    • gottabesaid

      The assumption that vanilla cake would be the only desired dessert is draconian. How about fruit bowls? Pie? Chocolate cake? To stereotype StatsCan employees as vanilla-cake-only eaters is backward thinking. C'mon StatsCan, get into the 21st Century.

      • Rob Shift

        The problem is that StatsCan's voluntary survey caused a reduction in the number of respondents that are outliers. As a result, the survey distorted the demand values for the various desserts.

  • A_logician

    On the other hand (arm?), StatsCan employees had to provide their own black arm bands. See http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/20/lon….

  • madeyoulook

    Dopes. If they had distributed the samples of cake randomly, everything could have been representative, after all.

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