When the Reuters journo writes “volumes were down 0.1 per cent” he is speaking about the dysfunctionally designated estimates in “chained (2007) dollars”, a label that shows the servility of the Statistics Canada senior management to US BEA terminology and their inability to think things through. These monthly-linked chain Fisher volume estimates, since that’s what they really are, are a poor indicator of what the wholesale trade monthly movement for November will look like at the end of the month. For this the Laspeyres volume estimate, which showed a much larger 0.4% decrease, is likely to be closer to the mark. The annual wholesale trade estimates are ultimately annually-linked chain Fisher estimates, a far cry from these monthly-linked chain Fisher estimates, but the monthly movements of the wholesale trade series are never chain Fisher estimates of any kind, and certainly not chain Fisher estimates based on monthly links.