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Will winter weather and power outages lead to a baby boom in Greater Victoria?

Anecdotal evidence suggests yes, research says no.

First things first. People do not necessarily get busier – if you get the drift – when extreme events like winter storms keep them inside and bring down the lights.

Nine months after an ice storm had caused catastrophic damage across Quebec and other parts of North America in early 1998, demographers scoffed at the notion that this extreme weather event had any significant bearing on live birth rates in the province.