JOBS DATA LEAK ‘UNACCEPTABLE’

Finance Minister Bill Morneau, pictured, on Friday denounced the leak of highly anticipated employment data for April, which showed job losses caused by coronavirus-related shutdowns were lower than expected. The data was supposed to be released on the Statistics Canada’s website at 8:30 a.m. ET. The Bloomberg financial agency accurately reported the main numbers at about 8 a.m. “Leaks of this nature are unacceptable. We take this very seriously and the government will put the necessary processes in place to ensure this does not happen again,” Morneau spokesman Pierre- Olivier Herbert said in a statement. He did not give more details. Data leaks of this magnitude are virtually unheard of in Canada. “We will investigate the incident and take appropriate action going forward,” Statcan assistant chief statistician Jacques Fauteux said in a statement.