Regional gross domestic income, 2010 to 2021 in the Rural Data Viewer

Released: 2025-05-05

The Rural Data Viewer is a Statistics Canada online map tool that uses multiple data sources to present relevant data on rural and small towns. It was recently updated to include data on regional gross domestic income (GDI) from 2010 to 2021.

GDI represents the income that households, businesses, charities and governments can use to purchase goods and services or to make investments. It is measured annually in current dollars for economic regions (ERs) based on where people live and where firms and governments are headquartered. ERs are used for analysis of regional economic activity and include the three territories, Prince Edward Island and 72 sub-provincial areas. As ERs cover all of Canada, they can be used to measure growth across both rural and urban regions.

Manitoba's economic regions rank among the highest and lowest gross domestic income growth

From 2010 to 2021, GDI growth was highest in the North Coast and Lower Mainland–Southwest ERs (growth of just under 90% each) in British Columbia and the Southeast ER (+84%) in Manitoba.

The Southeast ER in Manitoba is largely rural and contains towns such as Steinbach, Niverville and Beausejour.

The North Coast ER in British Columbia is also largely rural, and it includes Prince Rupert, Terrace and Kitimat. The Southeast ER in Manitoba and the North Coast ER in British Columbia showed consistent growth from 2010 to 2021, except in 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which negatively affected growth in most ERs.

In contrast, the Lower Mainland–Southwest ER includes the densely urbanized Vancouver metropolitan area.

From 2010 to 2021, GDI growth was lowest in the ERs of North in Manitoba, Côte-Nord in Quebec and Wood Buffalo–Cold Lake in Alberta. Their levels of GDI were essentially the same at the end of the period as at the start.

Gross domestic income growth in Alberta affected by the price of oil

GDI growth in regions can vary considerably over time. The ERs of Athabasca–Grande Prairie–Peace River and of Wood Buffalo–Cold Lake—both of which cover large parts of northern Alberta—ranked in the top 10 fastest growing regions from 2010 to 2014. However, following the oil price crash in 2014, these oil-producing regions experienced a large decline in their relative GDI growth. Hence, over the entire 2010 to 2021 period, Athabasca–Grande Prairie–Peace River (70th of 76) and Wood Buffalo–Cold Lake (74th) ranked among the bottom 10 ERs in terms of GDI growth.

Inconsistent growth rate among 10 highest gross domestic income regions

For the 10 regions with the highest GDI by value in 2021, which include Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montréal, the average growth rate from 2010 to 2021 was 52%. When compared across time, growth rates in the top 10 regions vary. For example, in Calgary and Edmonton, GDI steadily increased from 2010 to 2014, but it decreased following the oil price collapse and has struggled to return to its 2014 current-dollar level. Conversely, Toronto, Lower Mainland–Southwest and Hamilton–Niagara Peninsula did not experience the same level of economic shock; their GDI grew consistently from 2010 to 2021, except in 2020.

Products

The product "Rural Data Viewer," part of Statistics Canada - Data Visualization Products (Catalogue number71-607-X), is now available. The complete dataset is available upon request.

Contact information

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