A national agency with international reach

"Throughout the past century, Statistics Canada has been on the forefront of modernizing official statistics, has played a leading role in the global statistical system and has been a reliable partner in international statistical cooperation. The United Nations Statistical Commission owes much of its technical wit to the invaluable substantive and strategic contributions of Statistics Canada.

Our Canadian colleagues have joined the United Nations Statistics Division on numerous occasions, in all corners of the world and regarding just about every topic of statistics and―without exception―they have generously shared their expertise with the global statistical community. For that I am particularly grateful. With congratulations on the 100 years and wishing you many more successful years to come."

― Sabine Warschburger (on behalf of Stefan Schweinfest), United Nations Statistics Division

"The partnership between Statistics Canada and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) spans almost 100 years, shaping the development of official statistics in the region and beyond.

R.H. Coats, whose name is on the Statistics Canada building, was among the founding members of the small but powerful Committee of Statistical Experts, created by the League of Nations in Geneva in 1928. This committee laid the foundation for the Conference of European Statisticians. Since then, Statistics Canada experts have impacted the work of the Conference with their expertise, innovation, commitment and leadership. Canada's engagement and contributions have been a significant element in the success of UNECE's statistical work. Thank you Statistics Canada. UNECE is grateful for your support over the years. We look forward to another 100 years of close partnership."

— Lidia Bratanova, UNECE

"Statistics Canada is admired internationally for the quality and consistency of its informational output. But, it is also recognized as a global leader in innovation. In recent years, it has contributed to advance measurement in key areas such as globalization and the digital economy; and it is now pioneering efforts to generate new and better statistics from the ever-expanding wealth of new data sources, and to rethink the role of national statistical offices in the new data ecosystems.

Statistics Canada has helped us to frame the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Recommendation on Good Statistical Practice, and I was gratified that this Recommendation could serve as a reference when Canada amended its statistical law last year. On a personal note, I would like to record my warm thanks to Anil Arora, Canada's Chief Statistician, and his predecessors for their continuous strong support to international statistics and capacity-building in developing countries."

― Martine Durand, Statistics and Data Directorate

"I have always been very proud of being part of an institution that is innovative, demand driven, able to attract very good people and produced outputs of high quality. From an international perspective, I appreciate much more how Statistics Canada was able to evolve and maintain its hallmark of excellence by fostering innovation and staying relevant. The contributions of its experts in all statistical domains are remarkable and contribute to its reputation of standard setter. In fact, its expertise is not only sought in statistics, but also in organization management. Its influence is felt everywhere around the globe and I like to think that I remain one of its proud ambassador."

— Louis Marc Ducharme, International Monetary Fund

"During my 28 years in Official Statistics, the professional environment has changed significantly, yet one important and valued constant throughout has been the leadership role played by Statistics Canada. For us in the Central Statistics Office in Ireland, Statistics Canada has been an exemplar of professionalism, of integrity and of commitment to innovation, spearheading and supporting the continuous development of the global statistical community.

The historic links between our two organisations have grown ever stronger in recent years, as evidenced by our frequent collaborations and professional exchanges. As you celebrate one hundred years of Official Statistics for Canada, we extend warm congratulations and our best wishes for the century to come!"

— Pádraig Dalton, Central Statistics Office in Ireland

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) congratulates Statistics Canada on its centennial anniversary. Throughout the years, Statistics Canada has been noted for its work with developing countries to improve their statistical programmes. Jamaica has been a recipient of this support through the development of its quarterly gross domestic product and Quality Assurance Framework. This latter project was part of the International Statistical Fellowship Programme, which was aimed at strengthening leadership capacity within national statistics offices.

Statistics Canada's most recent support is through the Project for the Regional Advancement of Statistics in the Caribbean. This initiative has helped the CARICOM region and Jamaica to strengthen their statistical programmes and systems.

STATIN commends Statistics Canada and looks forward to strengthening our partnership in the years to come.

— Carol Coy, Statistical Institute of Jamaica

As Director General of Statistics Netherlands it is always a great pleasure to work together with another world–leader in statistics like Statistics Canada.

I am honoured to have the opportunity to devote a few words to our excellent relationship in the past, one that promises a continuing fruitful collaboration in the next 100 years.

First, the contribution that the methodologists of Statistics Canada have made to the world is worth mentioning. An appealing example is the Fellegi-Holt (FH) algorithm developed in 1976 and named after the former Chief Statistician of Canada and his British colleague. The FH methodology has been widely adopted and we still use this methodology at Statistics Netherlands.

Our organisations are both very active in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe High Level Group on Modernisation of Official Statistics. The fact that Statistics Netherlands delivered the first chair for this group and that Canada is now the third chair, and that we are currently co-chairing the executive board, clearly demonstrates our shared ambition to stimulate innovation and modernisation activities and to develop concrete deliverables for the benefit of the international statistical community. This is also reflected in the role of our offices in the area of big data—we are active contributors to the work in the United Nations Global Working Group on Big Data. There are many examples of the leading and collaborative role of our offices in international bodies, but this testimonial is too short to list them all.

What I would also like to share is how my staff always report that the collaboration between our offices in international as well as bilateral meetings is remarkably open and inspiring: we speak the same language, share the same attitude and ambitions, are eager to learn from each other and to think outside the box. As a result we strengthen each other.

Many bilateral visits have taken place since as early as the 1980s and remarkable is that they go beyond the traditional visits. Illustrative is that colleagues of Statistics Canada came to our office to share their experiences and help us with the use of the Cloud. On the other hand Statistics Netherlands helped Statistics Canada "on the job" with using R in official statistics.

In February 2018 this long-standing excellent relationship was formalized in a Memorandum of Understanding. This memorandum establishes joint activities to encourage innovation between the two countries and enhance knowledge-sharing in the areas of big data, primary data-collection tools, confidentiality-related topics, data virtualization, data lakes, data access and data stewardship. In this light, a staff exchange scheme may be a way to achieve more intensive collaboration.

It is obvious that the partnership between Statistics Canada and Statistics Netherlands has had and will continue to have mutual benefits; but our collaboration has also benefited the broader community, and we can expect to do this too in the future, thus creating a win-win-WIN situation!

My warm congratulations on the centenary of Statistics Canada, and I look forward to collaborating for a brighter statistical future!

­— Tjark Tjin-A-Tsoi, Statistics Netherlands