The Daily through the years

Released: 2024-08-01

The Daily was first published in February 1932 in the form of a typewritten fact sheet. It has since been released every working day, even through wars, floods, ice storms, social unrest and, more recently, a global pandemic—evolving over the years into an online, fully accessible product that is released daily in both English and French.

It has told Canada's statistical tale for more than nine decades, providing an insightful window into Canadian history.

The first edition

It was a Thursday morning, February 18, 1932, when the first edition of the then Daily Bulletin rolled out of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. The new publication covered three topics, not all that different from those published these days—lumber exports, building permits and wheat exports.

The building permits release, covering January 1932, noted that although the wholesale price of building materials was lower in January than during any other winter since 1920, five provinces still reported a rise in the total value of permits.

Infographic 1 
First edition of the Daily Bulletin, February 18, 1932

Delivering data in both official languages

On January 3, 1938, the Daily Bulletin became bilingual. The French- and English-language editions were not identical—at least, not in the order of their articles. While the English-language edition led with international trade, the first article in the French-language version talked about soap imports and exports. Canada, at the time, was a big player in the soap business, exporting almost two million pounds, worth close to $175,000, with the United Kingdom receiving almost all of our toilet soap production.

Canadian statistics on D-Day

Fast forward to June 6, 1944, when Allied troops launched the biggest one-day offensive in history on D-Day.

While the statistical content of the Daily Bulletin was in line with a typical release day, covering crop conditions in Canada, there was a reference to effects from the ongoing war. A note appeared on the bulletin indicating that "this Bureau is co-operating in the conservation of paper on account of the present critical shortage thereof."

Never on a Sunday

Until May 30, 1953, the Daily Bulletin was published six days a week. The last Saturday edition looked at wage growth and hours worked, and noted that since the end of the Second World War, average hourly wages had grown 86%, while the average work week had fallen by 2.8 hours, as the country readjusted to a peacetime footing.

Canada at 100

In 1967, as Canada was celebrating its 100th birthday, the Daily Bulletin was occasionally being published at different times of the day. Most editions were produced overnight in time for the morning newspaper editions, but some were produced in time for evening newspapers that were delivered to homes at suppertime.

Coverage in the Daily Bulletin in 1967 reflected social realities that are no longer familiar today. In April 1967, the Daily Bulletin featured statistics on the value of cheques cashed in the 51 clearing centres across the country, with cheques totalling $48.7 billion, up 12.2% from April 1966.

Just over a year later, the Daily Bulletin became The Daily.

Montréal welcomes the world

In July 1976, Canada, for the first time, hosted the Summer Olympics, which took place in Montréal. While the country did not win any gold medals, there were plenty of ways to watch the games, as just over 2,300 colour TV sets and 2,400 black and white TV sets were sold that month, higher than in July 1975.

End of the Cold War

The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, bringing with it an end to the Cold War. But, while this international event was taking place, the Daily was discussing a local topic that still draws great interest today: housing.

On November 9, 1989, The Daily announced that Canada's hottest market was Toronto, with prices for new housing up 17.5% year over year.

Confederation Bridge

After years of planning and discussion, the Confederation Bridge opened in May 1997, linking Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Few sectors would feel the impact of this new infrastructure more than the tourism industry, which, according to The Daily at the end of May, was already doing pretty well. Foreign visitors injected a record $3.2 billion into the Canadian economy in the final quarter of 1997, up 4.1% from the fourth quarter of 1996.

The COVID-19 pandemic

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization classified COVID-19 as a pandemic. Along with about one-third of the Canadian labour force, the Daily production team moved to remote work. In March, the unemployment rate increased 2.2 percentage points to 7.8%, and then reached 13.7% in May, the highest level recorded since comparable data became available in 1976. From February to April 2020, gross domestic product declined significantly.

Through it all, The Daily stayed true to its name and continued to publish on a daily basis.

Canada's population reaches 40 million

After Canada's population grew by an unprecedented 930,442 people in 2022—most of them permanent and temporary immigrants—Statistics Canada announced on June 16, 2023, that it reached a historic milestone of 40 million. The growth rate in 2022 (+2.4%) was the highest since 1957 (+3.3%), during the post-war baby boom and high immigration of refugees following the Hungarian Revolution.

According to a medium-growth projection scenario, Canada could have 62.8 million inhabitants by 2073. There would be a population of 47.1 million in a low-growth scenario, rising to as high as 87.2 million in a high-growth scenario. By comparison, it took 26 years to go from 30 million to 40 million.

The Daily milestones

• Very first issue: February 18, 1932

• First bilingual issue: January 3, 1938

• Last issue published on a Saturday: May 30, 1953

• Name changed from Daily Bulletin to The Daily: July 3, 1968

• First electronic issue: June 13, 1995

• First PDF version: April 1, 1996

• The Daily is first released on the StatsCAN app: January 31, 2022

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).