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Return of The Walking Dead: A statistical look back at the series so far
This Sunday marks the return of AMC’s The Walking Dead. To mark the occasion, the Post catches you up to speed on everyone’s favourite gorefest
Graphic: Abortion in Canada — almost 100,000 documented terminations in 2009
The National Post breaks down the most recent complete numbers from the Canadian Institute for Health Information on abortion in Canada, gathered from provincial and territorial ministries of health, hospitals and independent abortion clinics (it doesn’t include fee-for-service abortion data because it’s of varying quality). While data from hospitals and clinics alone underestimates the number of abortions performed in Canada annually, for now it’s the best way to produce comparable Canadian data. Above is a look at the 93,755 induced abortions reported in 2009 (the most recent year for which data were available).
Rise of the atheists: U.S. Protestants lose majority status as church attendance falls
For the first time in its history, the United States does not have a Protestant majority, according to a new study.
One reason: The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is on the rise.
The percentage of Protestant adults in the U.S. has reached a low of 48 per cent, the first time that Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has reported with certainty that the number has fallen below 50 per cent. The drop has long been anticipated and comes at a time when no Protestants are on the U.S. Supreme Court and the Republicans have their first presidential ticket with no Protestant nominees.
Women who killed husbands ‘rarely gave a warning,’ and most weren’t abused, study finds
Conventional wisdom suggests that women usually kill their spouses in self defence or as a final, desperate reaction to chronic battery, the burning-bed syndrome that is sometimes cited as a defence in murder trials. A new Canadian study, however, suggests that barely a quarter of husband-killers are victims of domestic abuse, less than half suffer from any identified psychological problem, and fewer still have had trouble with police.
Canada goes grey: Boomers’ new strain on pensions, health care
Canada is slowly but surely becoming a nation of older people. The demographic trends were confirmed Tuesday, as Statistics Canada released the latest batch of data from its 2011 census. Back in 1971, eight per cent of us were 65 and older.
Last year, as the first wave of baby boomers reached the milestone, the proportion was 14.8 per cent. That’s nearly 5 million seniors (4,945,060, to be exact) out of 33.5 million Canadians.
There were 5,825 Canadians who have reached their 100th birthday — centenarians — and the number is projected to steadily rise to a whopping 78,300 in the next 50 years.
All the while — and here’s a surprise — there’s a mini-baby boom happening in this country. The population of children aged four and under increased 11 per cent between 2006 and 2011 — the highest growth rate for this age group since the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Graphic: Where are Toronto’s murders happening?
When Justin and Jerome Waterman were found on Feb. 20, shot in the head in a North York parking garage, the 2012 Toronto homicide total climbed to eight. But focusing soley on the year-to-date caseload ignores what came before. A look at the locations of the homicides since 2006 reveals a lot about our city.
Gary Clement’s Week in Review for Nov. 20 to 26, 2011
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Statisticians can prove almost anything, a new study finds
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Syria death toll rises despite Arab League sanctions
Crime & Punishment: Conclusions about crime ‘badly distorted’
Every summer, Statistics Canada unveils its much-touted crime report showing the country is getting ever safer, with precipitous drops in violent crime over the past decade.
But in a report released Wednesday from the Ottawa think-tank Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy, author Scott Newark argues statisticians have tweaked the data so much it’s nearly impossible to understand what’s happening to crime in Canada, or how effective the justice system is at cracking down on repeat offenders.
The result is that “many of the most common conclusions that are drawn about crime in Canada are in fact incorrect or badly distorted,” says Mr. Newark, a former Alberta Crown prosecutor.
Violent crime, youth crime and murderous attacks have all been on the rise in Canada, the report shows, with the violent crime rate in 2009 nearly five times what it was in 1962 when Statistics Canada first devised its method of collecting crime statistics from local police departments.
Check out our full visual archive.
The Post‘s Richard Johnson looks at what is killing us comparing 2007 and 1967. Here is 1967.
The Post‘s Richard Johnson looks at what is killing us comparing 2007 and 1967. First up: 2007.
