Introducing canada.datastam.ai: Statistics Canada, searchable and askable

Statistics Canada publishes some of the best public data in the world. Finding the right table, downloading it, and turning it into a chart you can show someone is still a chore. canada.datastam.ai is our answer: one site where every StatCan table is searchable, the headline numbers are live, and you can ask a question in plain English and get a chart back.

It is free, and you do not need an account to start.

What is on the site

A live statistics dashboard. The homepage shows Canada's current unemployment rate, consumer price index and population, with a year-over-year change and the reference month, for Canada, every province and the three territories. Ten indicators across jobs, prices and population each have their own page with up to the full history and a link to the exact StatCan series behind the number. Values refresh from StatCan's Web Data Service as new releases land.

The full catalog. Explore Canada's Public Data indexes 8,270 Statistics Canada tables, organized into 24 categories from economy and employment to housing, health and immigration. Every table has a page with its description, frequency, time span, keywords, a link to StatCan and a direct CSV download.

276 published AI analyses. For a growing set of tables we have already run the analysis: an executive summary, key findings, trend charts, distributions and outliers, each citing the table it came from. Browse them at AI Analyses of Statistics Canada Data.

Ask a question. Type "compare unemployment across provinces" or "consumer price index over time" and the system finds the matching table, writes and runs the Python, and returns charts, tables and a short explanation with the StatCan table cited.

Deep Analysis. For questions that span several tables, Deep Analysis works like a research assistant: it discovers the relevant datasets, inspects them, runs the analysis, cross-checks against the web and writes a longer report with numbered sources. It takes a few minutes and is available on signed-in plans.

How to use it

1. Start on the homepage. Pick a geography. The overview tab gives you the three headline numbers; the Jobs, Prices and Population tabs go deeper. Click any tile to see its history and source.
2. Find a table. Use the catalog search or browse a category. Each result has "View Details" for metadata and "Start Analyzing" to open the table in a chat.
3. Read what is already there. If a table has a published analysis, "View Analysis" shows charts and findings without waiting. Every analysis has a version history and a permalink you can share.
4. Ask your own question. Open the chat from any dataset page or from the docked bar on the homepage. Phrase it the way you would ask a colleague. You get three questions a day as a guest and five with a free account.
5. Go deeper. Turn on Deep Analysis for multi-table questions such as "How has housing affordability changed across provinces since 2015?"
6. Share it. Publish a conversation as a story to the Datastam gallery, export a PDF, or copy an analysis permalink.

Where the numbers come from

Everything on the site is sourced from Statistics Canada under the Open Government Licence – Canada. The catalog syncs from StatCan's Web Data Service, tables are downloaded from StatCan when you open them, and the live dashboard checks StatCan's changed-cube list before serving a stale number. Each chart, analysis and answer names the table it was built from, so you can go back to the source in one click.

The analyses are generated by AI. That is the point of the site, and also why every page tells you exactly which table was used and when the analysis was generated. Newer data triggers a refresh, and you can request one from the page.

Who it is for

Journalists on a deadline, students with an assignment due, analysts who want a first pass before opening a notebook, and anyone who has ever typed a question into StatCan's search box and given up. If you work with Canadian public data, this should save you an afternoon.

Start at canada.datastam.ai. If you build things, the Developers page takes early-access requests for the API.