Provincial and Territorial Cultural Indicators, 2024
Released: 2026-06-02
The culture and sport sectors in Canada registered another year of increased economic activity in 2024.
Nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of culture and sport increased in all provinces and territories in 2024 with Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia leading the way. Canada's nominal GDP attributable to culture and sport increased 4.4% from 2023 to reach $75.4 billion in 2024; this was slightly slower than the growth of total economy GDP (+4.9%). The contribution of culture and sport to economy-wide GDP in 2024 stood at 2.6%, unchanged from 2023.
In 2024, the number of jobs in culture and sport increased 2.3%, a gain of approximately 18,000 jobs, while economy-wide jobs rose 1.8%. Overall, jobs attributable to culture and sport as a share of the total number of Canadian jobs remained at 3.8%. Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia contributed the most to job growth.
Culture sector continues to grow
Canada's culture nominal GDP increased 4.0% to $67.1 billion in 2024, with increases recorded in all domains. The largest contributors to this growth were the culture governance, funding and professional support domain (+$0.8 billion; +7.1%), the visual and applied arts domain (+$0.5 billion; +3.3%) and the audio-visual and interactive media domain (+$0.5 billion; +2.5%). Advertising, design and architecture were the primary subdomains behind the increase in the visual and applied arts domain, while the broadcasting subdomain led the increase in the audio-visual and interactive media domain.
Culture accounted for just over 2 dollars (2.3%) of every 100 dollars of total economy GDP in 2024, unchanged from the previous year.
The number of culture jobs grew 2.1% to 696,359 jobs in 2024, representing 3.3% of all jobs in Canada. There were increases across all domains, with the exception of the multi domain and the written and published works domain. Declining jobs in the newspaper subdomain was the primary factor for job decreases in the written and published works domain, as many newspaper publishers continued a trend of reduced print operations in favour of digital-only models.
Chart 1
Growth in nominal gross domestic product by culture domain, 2024
Strong growth in Canada's sport sector
Sport GDP was up 7.4% in 2024, totalling $8.3 billion, with all subdomains increasing. The sport education subdomain recorded the largest increase, with GDP growing by 8.8% to reach $3.5 billion.
Similar to sport GDP, the number of jobs in sport increased in all subdomains in 2024. Altogether, sport jobs increased 3.9% to 104,023 jobs. Sport education jobs increased 4.0% to reach 44,080 jobs, while organized sport jobs increased 4.2% to reach 39,561 jobs.
Chart 2
Growth in nominal gross domestic product by sport domain, 2024
Growth in culture and sport across Canada
All provinces and territories posted growth in culture GDP in 2024. Canada's three largest provinces–Quebec (+2.5%; +$356.7 million), British Columbia (+5.0%; +$544.9 million) and Ontario (+4.1%; +$1.2 billion)–observed relatively strong increases in culture GDP. Reflecting the diverse economies across the country, the contribution of culture to economy-wide GDP varied across Canada, ranging from 1.0% in Saskatchewan to 2.8% in British Columbia.
In terms of jobs, all provinces and territories posted job gains in 2024, except for the Northwest Territories (-0.9%). Culture jobs as a share of total economy jobs ranged from 2.0% in both Nunavut and New Brunswick to 4.3% in British Columbia.
All provinces and territories experienced increases in sport GDP in 2024, with Ontario (+$234.8 million; +7.0%), British Columbia (+$125.8 million; +9.1%) and Quebec (+$98.2 million; +9.1%) increasing by the largest amounts. Sport GDP as a share of economy-wide GDP did not have much variation across Canada. Like sport GDP, increases in the number of jobs attributable to sport were seen in all provinces and territories, with the exception of Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories.
Note to readers
The Provincial and Territorial Culture Indicators (PTCI) were developed as an extension of the more comprehensive Provincial and Territorial Culture Satellite Account. The PTCI cover culture (including arts and heritage) and sport across Canada in terms of output, nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and jobs for the period from 2010 to 2024.
The PTCI are a joint initiative of Statistics Canada, other federal agencies, all provincial and territorial governments, as well as non-governmental organizations.
All the GDP figures in this release are expressed in nominal, basic prices. Total economy GDP is calculated using income-based GDP at market prices minus taxes less subsidies on products and imports.
This release focuses on the product perspective of the PTCI—the production of culture and sport goods and services and their contribution to output, GDP and jobs in both culture and non-culture industries and sport and non-sport industries.
Culture GDP is the economic value added associated with culture activities. This is the value added related to the production of culture goods and services across the economy, regardless of the producing industry. Culture jobs are the number of jobs that are related to the production of culture goods and services.
Sport GDP is the economic value added associated with sport activities. This is the value added related to the production of sport goods and services across the economy regardless of the producing industry. Sport jobs are the number of jobs that are related to the production of sport goods and services.
Film and video
The film and video subdomain underwent major enhancements starting with reference year 2015. The sources and methods for estimating this subdomain, notably the Survey of Service Industries: Film, Television and Video Production, have been revised to include improved estimation methods.
The new methodology increases the use of administrative data in combination with survey data to build the estimates. These methodological improvements were applied to all variables (i.e., GDP, output and jobs).
Written and published works
Print publishing has continued to decline as industries shift toward producing online content. This decline can be seen within the written and published works domain with the exception of the 2017 reference year. In 2017, the sources and methods for estimating this domain were enhanced to more accurately represent the presence of online publishers. This was a result of the new 2017 North American Industry Classification System.
Audio-visual and interactive media and visual and applied arts
Refinements to the video game publishing and design and development industries and to the computer systems design and related services industry were introduced in 2016 to improve estimates around video game development and website design. These impact both the design and interactive media subdomains of the visual and applied arts domain and the audio-visual and interactive media domain, respectively.
As of the 2019 release of the Culture Satellite Accounts, significant revisions were incorporated to both the design and interactive media subdomains beginning in reference year 2016.
Products
The Economic accounts statistics portal, accessible from the Subjects module of our website, features an up-to-date portrait of national and provincial economies and their structure.
The Latest Developments in the Canadian Economic Accounts (13-605-X) is available.
The User Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-606-G) is available.
The Methodological Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-607-X) is available.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
- Date modified: