Robson Fletcher's avatar

Robson Fletcher

@robsonfletcher.bsky.social

801 followers 249 following 208 posts

Data journalist with CBC Calgary. Views my own and subject to change, especially in light of new evidence. 📧 robson.fletcher@cbc.ca

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Phil Smith's avatar Phil Smith @philsmith26.bsky.social
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The child day-care industry has been trending up, as a share of total Canadian employment, for ages. The federal initiative in 2021 to subsidize the industry brought even faster growth. The industry accounted for over 1% of total employment in April of this year, up from just 0.5% in 2001. #cdnecon

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Some personal news: I'm going to be away from my data-journalist job for the next while. I'm taking a parental leave. 👶 Back in February 2025. ✌️

8 replies 0 reposts 40 likes

Reposted by Robson Fletcher

Alec Stapp's avatar Alec Stapp @alecstapp.bsky.social
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Contender for favorite chart of all time: Predictions vs. Reality for solar energy.

58 replies 756 reposts 2302 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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In a pre-election "platform," the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce "recommends lowering the age that youth are able to work to 13 years of age."

🔗: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

2 replies 2 reposts 8 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Two weather solitudes in Canada right now.

Blue dots show record low temperatures & forecasts in the west.

Red dots show record high temperatures & forecasts in the east.

Via the CBC Climate Dashboard.

🔗: newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/202...

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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This Canadian Member of Parliament asked ChatGPT for a list of capital gains tax rates by country, got a nonsense answer, screenshotted it, and then tweeted the incorrect information. (He later deleted the tweet.)

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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The influx to Alberta continues.

And this is prior to the "moving bonus" incentive, which took effect May 1.

If you move here now, (and you work in certain, approved industries) the government will pay you $5,000: www.alberta.ca/alberta-is-c...

1 replies 2 reposts 2 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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A brief history of Canada's "infrastructure deficit" being highlighted as a big problem, with little being done about it:

2024:

Alberta Municipalities say budget lacks adequate infrastructure funding

edmontonjournal.com/news/politic...

1 replies 3 reposts 7 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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The argument from the province is this will bring the rules to a minimum standard, as there is quite a bit of variation between school authorities right now. (Some already have stricter rules than this, others less) I'm curious: Would your teen prefer to see more or less stringent provincial rules?

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Alberta is banning personal mobile devices for students during class time starting in fall 2024. Social media access will also be restricted within schools. Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides is announcing details now.

2 replies 3 reposts 4 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Minnesota's law against bong water stems from a 2009 court case which relied, in part, "on the testimony of a Minnesota State Patrol officer who claimed that drug users keep bong water 'for future use… either drinking it or shooting it in the veins.'" 🤯

minnesotareformer.com/2024/06/10/f...

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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"To put it plainly, we believe that our views are clearly right, and so if listening to us didn't convince others, that has to be because they didn't listen properly."

www.bps.org.uk/research-dig...

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Environment and Climate Change Canada expects above-average temperatures throughout most of country this summer.

"These conditions are likely to result in other severe weather events," it warns:

www.canada.ca/en/environme...

1 replies 21 reposts 24 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Love the public broadcaster urge to seek unnecessary academic comment and then just tack it on at the end. 😅

1 replies 0 reposts 7 likes

Reposted by Robson Fletcher

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Calgary driver told by his insurance company he qualifies for the Alberta government's new "good driver" 3.7% cap on premium hikes.

But it doesn't kick in until 2025.

Meanwhile, his premium increased $500 this year, up 18.5% from the year before.

🔗: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

1 replies 2 reposts 2 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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There's now a huge crater full of water along 16th Avenue N.W. in Calgary, where a massive water main burst last night. (📷 credit: Monty Kruger / CBC)

2 replies 5 reposts 13 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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The mater main that broke in Calgary is identified on this map as the largest pipe in the city's network, between 1.65 and 3 metres (!!) in diameter.

0 replies 3 reposts 15 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Twitter used to be effective for emergency communications but now you can only see one tweet — and no subsequent tweets in a thread — if you don’t have an account or are not logged in. And yet the City of Calgary is still using Twitter threads to communicate emergency info.

3 replies 7 reposts 17 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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New Statistics Canada data on just how much the newspaper industry has shrunk — especially in Alberta. Alberta: About 1/4th the number of jobs in 2022 as in 2010. (GDP also about 1/4th of what it was back then.) Compare that to... BC: About 1/3rd the jobs in 2022 vs 2010. (GDP about half.)

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Reposted by Robson Fletcher

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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“People in northern India are struggling with an unrelenting, weeks-long heatwave, with temperature in India’s capital soaring to a national record-high of 52.3 C, the government’s weather bureau said.”

www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024...

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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In the past a human would spend days manually cropping hundreds of photos. This took the better part of a morning.

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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As an example: For an election here I wanted similar headshots of the ~350 candidates. But source images were all over the place in terms of shape/size. An image-recognition Python library is capable of doing that, but I'd never used it before. Some AI-made code got me started & I took it from there

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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The code works? Often requires some human debugging / tweaking / rewriting but especially when working with an unfamiliar library for a specific task it's a faster starting point than reading through the documentation and starting from scratch

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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To summarize the saga: Speaker says gov't caucus members (made up of fellow party members!) have threatened him, and one cabinet minister once brought a rifle into the legislature. Premier Scott Moe says that's "unequivocally false." The minister says it's actually true. He remains in cabinet.

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Eh, I have many red flags about it, but will say it's handy for light coding purposes, and has allowed me to do some journalistic tasks in minutes / hours that would have otherwise taken days / weeks.

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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UPDATE:

"Jeremy Harrison has resigned as Saskatchewan government House leader for not telling Premier Scott Moe about bringing a hunting rifle into the legislature in the past."

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

2 replies 1 reposts 2 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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A loon on Lake Edith in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.

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Reposted by Robson Fletcher

Corey Hogan's avatar Corey Hogan @coreyhogan.bsky.social
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You’re all walking around too confident so I just wanted to remind you: 1) If Back to the Future was created today Marty would travel back to 1994. 2) If The Wedding Singer was created today it would take place in 2011 and he’d be singing Call Me Maybe.

1 replies 4 reposts 3 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Totally. That chart is from the story I posted just prior, which focused on Edmonton and Calgary, which are the real outliers when it comes to interprovincial migration. Here's another way of looking at the relative scale of the components of population growth for the cities you mentioned

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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Population growth due to interprovincial migration: Calgary and Edmonton see huge gains. Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal and Toronto big losses.

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Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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"Calgary's metro-area population grew by nearly 96,000 people last year — a staggering six per cent increase in the span of just 12 months — according to new estimates released Wednesday by Statistics Canada."

🔗: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

1 replies 3 reposts 2 likes

Robson Fletcher's avatar Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.bsky.social
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A child has died from measles in Hamilton, Ontario.

It's the first measles death in the province since 1989.

The child was not immunized against measles.

🔗: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

8 replies 35 reposts 51 likes