The federal government — god bless 'em — has launched what it calls its new Open Data Portal, a pilot project in which the feds will put a bunch of datasets online.
I think this is going to be a great resource, not only for journalists, but for researchers, educators, and anyone else with an interest in information about our country. Here's one neat dataset: History of the Federal Electoral Ridings, 1867-2010. I downloaded the data and thought I'd run this quick check: What are the most common occupations of all of those who have sought election to the House of Commons since Confederation? Answer: Lawyer. (you could probably guess that one.) But what's second? Or third? Wonder no longer! Here's the list of the most popular occupations, as reported by the 36,000 candidates who have stood for office in all the general and byelections we have had. (this data set does not include the 41st general election held on May 2, 2011). I note that “Journalist” makes the top 10 while “Housewife” is number 21.
- lawyer (3730)
- farmer (2587)
- teacher (1415)
- merchant (1194)
- businessman (1125)
- physician (999)
- barrister (981)
- parliamentarian (817)
- student (795)
- journalist (497)
- retired (476)
- manufacturer (425)
- manager (355)
- Member of Parliament (353)
- administrator (298)
- accountant (271)
- consultant (268)
- contractor (267)
- notary (224)
- engineer (223)
- housewife (196)
- salesman (195)
- insurance agent (190)
- professor (186)
- secretary (179)
Now, remember what I said about “housewife” cracking the Top 25 most common occupations so far as candidates go in our history? Well, a lot of “housewives” may have run, but they have not been that successful. In fact, though 196 housewives have run for Parliament, just 13 have won in our entire history. Check out the next list: It's the most popular occupations of the 11,000 people who have actually been elected to the House of Commons in our history. (11,000 and only 13 housewives among them!). Lawyer and farmer are still 1-2. Journalist drops to 11. And I am pleased to see that Canadians elected 56 MPs who, when asked for their occupation, simply replied “Gentleman.” Very nice. So, here the 25 most popular occupations of our MPs.
- lawyer (2046)
- farmer (1023)
- parliamentarian (702)
- merchant (604)
- physician (511)
- businessman (448)
- barrister (435)
- teacher (278)
- Member of Parliament (210)
- manufacturer (200)
- journalist (184)
- notary (123)
- lumber merchant (90)
- editor (89)
- barrister-at-law (79)
- politician (78)
- manager (76)
- administrator (73)
- contractor (70)
- lumberman (67)
- retired (58)
- gentleman (56)
- insurance agent (56)
- accountant (55)
- insurance broker (55))
Now this is a very rough cut at the data. Because “occupation” is self-reported, there's a lot of data that needs cleaning up here. For example, 2 MPs identified themselves as “broadcast journalist”, 3 as a “reporter” but, of course, they should all be lumped in in the “journalist” category. Nonetheless, an interesting chunk of data worth additional probing…
Last little data slice: In our electoral history, candidates who list “lawyer” as their occupation have garnered 19.1 million votes in our electoral history. Those who said they were “farmers” have garnered 7.4 million votes. Housewives: 178,447 votes.