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Statistics presented are derived from a survey of nine Provincial Research Organizations (PRO): the InNOVAcorp (formerly the Nova Scotia Research Foundation Corporation), the New Brunswick Research and Productivity Council, the "Centre de recherche industrielle du Québec (CRIQ)", the Industrial Technology Centre (Manitoba) (formerly the Economic Innovation and Technology Council), the Saskatchewan Research Council, the Alberta Research Council, the Yukon Research Institute, the NUNAVUT Research Institute (formerly the Science Institute of the Northwest Territories) and the Aurora Research Institute.

Businesses have embraced the use of information and communications technologies such as e-mail, and the Internet and the personal computer or PC are widely used in most businesses. Use of computers among enterprises was high at 81.9%. The Internet, originally designed as a communications medium for researchers, is now being adopted by many other groups. The Internet was used by 52.8% of enterprises and these enterprises accounted for three-quarters of economic activity.

The proportion of enterprises with Web sites was 21.7% and these enterprises account for 44.8% of economic activity for the private sector. Among other uses, the Internet was used to purchase goods and services by 13.8% of enterprises and by 10.1% to sell goods and services. Significant variation exists in the levels of information and communications technologies use across industries.

The public sector is a model user of information and communications technologies. The proportion of institutions in public health, education, and federal and provincial governments using the Internet and e-mail, and having Internet Web sites is significantly higher than it is for the private sector. Over 95 % of institutions in the public sector use the Internet, 96.6% use e-mail and 69.2% have an Internet Web site.

The volume of Internet-based sales reported was $4.4 billion, of which $4.2 billion was for the private sector and $200 million for the public sector. Total private sector Internet based sales accounted for 0.2% of economic activity in terms of total operating revenue.

For non-Internet users the most important reason for not using the Internet to purchase or sell goods or services was the belief that their goods or services do not lend themselves to concluding transactions over the Internet. Among Internet users, the most popular reason given for not using the Internet to purchase or sell was that they prefer to maintain their current business model.

This article compares the characteristics of the 10 largest independent film and video producers, as measured by production revenues, with all the others, over a 10-year period starting in 1988/89.

The economy was strong in 1999 and while consumers were interested in big-ticket items such as automobiles in the first quarter of the year their attention turned to services later in the year.

Canadians exhibited a dramatic shift in their sport participation rate from 1992 to 1998. According to the latest information released from Statistics Canada's General Social Survey (GSS), fewer Canadians aged 15 years and older reported participating in a sport in 1998 than six years earlier (down almost 11 percentage points).

In 1999, as part of its General Social Survey program, Statistics Canada conducted a survey on victimization and public perceptions of crime and the justice system. It was the third time that the General Social Survey (GSS) had examined victimization - previous surveys were conducted in 1993 and 1988.

For the 1999 survey, interviews were conducted by telephone with approximately 26,000 people, aged 15 and older, living in the 10 provinces. Respondents were asked for their opinions concerning the level of crime in their neighbourhood, their fear of crime and their views concerning the performance of the justice system. They were also asked about their experiences with criminal victimization. Those respondents who had been victims of a crime in the previous 12 months were asked for detailed information on each incident, including when and where it occurred; whether the incident was reported to the police; and how they were affected by the experience.

This Juristat presents an overview of the findings of the 1999 General Social Survey and makes comparisons to results from 1993 and 1988.

Retirement issues have risen to the forefront of socio-economic debate in Canada through the nineties and will likely gain importance as we enter the new millennium. Employer pension plans are one of the primary programs in place to provide workers with income after retirement.

Pension plans in Canada: statistical highlights and key tables presents information on the terms, conditions and membership on all employers sponsored pension plans in Canada. This supplement to publication Pension plans in Canada (74-401-XIB) provides analysis and data on registered pension plans. The topics covered include province of employment, labour force/paid workers coverage, type of plan (defined benefit and defined contributions), size of plan, public and private sectors, contributory and non-contributory plans, employee and employer contributions.

This publication presents current and constant price estimates of provincial gross domestic product (GDP) for over 50 industries covering the entire Canadian economy, including aggregates and special industry groupings. The document also includes a comprehensive analytical review of the economy of each province and territory with summary text, tables and charts.

This article looks at the fast-growing Computer Services industry in Canada, with a particular focus on software developers, data processing firms, systems consultants, and Internet service providers.

This article examines trends in teenage pregnancy in Canada, focussing on induced abortions, live births and fetal loss among women aged 15 to 19 in 1997.

The third edition of Canadian culture in perspective: a statistical overview, provides a comprehensive statistical portrait of the health and vitality of cultural activities and industries in Canada. This compendium incorporates data from all surveys in Statistics Canada's Culture Statistics Program, as well as data from other internal and external sources, enabling readers to track various themes and trends over time.

This edition contains sections on: the economic impact of the culture sector, culture activities by tourists and the international trade position of the culture sector; on social dimensions of culture, including characteristics of the cultural labour force, philanthropic behaviour, and the consumers of cultural goods and services; and on various sectors such as heritage, the performing arts and festivals, visual arts and libraries. It also explores ownership and content issues in the culture industries (publishing, film, broadcasting and music).

Canada's ports handled a record 382.0 million tonnes (Mt.) of cargo in 1999 and a record of 2.2 million TEURS (twenty-foot-equivalent units) of containers.

Third quarter 1999 operating ratios for top carriers improved by one point over the same period one year earlier to 0.93 but were unchanged in the fourth quarter (0.94). Average revenue per carrier grew by 3% in the third quarter and 4% in the fourth quarter.

Retirement issues have risen to the forefront of socio-economic debate in Canada through the nineties and will likely gain importance as we enter the new millennium. Employer pension plans are one of the primary programs in place to provide workers with income after retirement.

Pension plans in Canada: statistical highlights and key tables presents information on the terms, conditions and membership on all employers sponsored pension plans in Canada. This supplement to publication Pension plans in Canada (74-401-XIB) provides analysis and data on registered pension plans. The topics covered include province of employment, labour force/paid workers coverage, type of plan (defined benefit and defined contributions), size of plan, public and private sectors, contributory and non-contributory plans, employee and employer contributions.

This publication presents current and constant price estimates of provincial gross domestic product (GDP) for over 50 industries covering the entire Canadian economy, including aggregates and special industry groupings. The document also includes a comprehensive analytical review of the economy of each province and territory with summary text, tables and charts.

The Vancouver-San Francisco market experienced the largest year-over-year increase in passengers of all the major markets between 1997 and 1998. Toronto-Milwaukee was the mid-sized market which experienced the largest year-over-year increase, with 25,520 more passengers in 1998 than 1997.

The volume of air travel between the Canadian cities and American states presented in Text Table 2.1 generally reflects the underlying large inter-city markets.

The Canada-United States Open Skies Agreement, which was signed on February 24 1995, transformed the regulatory environment for air services between two countries. Text Table 3.1 shows the changes in the level of travel between the U.S. and the eight most-frequented Canadian cities since 1995.

Scheduled air trips to or from Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta represented a greater proportion of total Canada-United States air travel than residents of these provinces represented of the total Canadian population. Alberta residents represented 9.6% of Canada's total population in 1998, while Alberta represented 11.8% of the total number of Canada-U.S. air travellers. Even more markedly, the populations of Ontario and British Columbia represented 37.7% and 13.2% respectively of the total Canadian population, while Ontario represented 44.4% of total Canada-U.S. travelers and British Columbia represented 20.8%.

North American transportation in figures provides a comprehensive set of comparable statistical indicators of the use, performance and impact of transportation in North America. It includes over 90 different data tables, supported by figures, maps and extensive technical documentation describing data categories and definitions relating to each country, that is, Canada, Mexico and the United States. The report covers a wide variety of transportation subjects across the three countries: including transportation and the economy; safety; merchandise trade; freight activity; passenger travel; infrastructure; and transportation energy and environment.

In the final paper of this special issue, Estevao and Särndal consider two types of design-based estimators used for domain estimation. The first, a linear prediction estimator, is built on the principle of model fitting, requires known auxiliary information at the domain level, and results in weights that depend on the domain to be estimated. The second, a uni-weight estimator, has weights which are independent of the domain being estimated and has the clear advantage that it does not require the calculation of different weight systems for each different domain of interest. These estimators are compared and situations under which one is preferred over the other are identified.

This study uses data to study differences in labour productivity gains across domestic and foreign-controlled establishments in the manufacturing sector for the period 1973 to 1993. In doing so, it also examines the extent to which labour productivity differences exist between small and large establishments and across industry sectors and how they have been changing over time.

The analysis consists of three parts. In the first section, the connection between labour usage and output is examined. This analysis investigates differences in marginal labour propensities for the different subgroups in the short and long-run. Here volatility is seen to be lower for foreign-controlled establishments. The second section examines the difference between the growth in average labour productivity for the same groups. Here foreign-controlled establishments are seen to have the highest growth rates. The third section investigates whether any trend can be found in the rates of growth for large and small, domestic and foreign establishments and finds that these differences have been increasing over time.

Foreign ownership in the Canadian telecommunications industry has always been an important policy issue, and recent events have further emphasized the significance of this topic.

The purpose of this short report is to provide basic information on the relative importance of the different players in the industry.

In recent years, several economic forces have caused a change in the structure of the economy. Factors such as globalization and trade liberalization, among others, have intensified competition resulting in reallocation of resources among sectors in Canada. As business services, communications and wholesale trade emerged as engines of growth, it is generally perceived that the manufacturing industry has lost its significance. In contrast, a review of historical data on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) show that the share of manufacturing output was slightly up, from 17.2% in 1961 to 17.8% in 1998.

This paper reflects upon the importance of manufacturing in the economy and focuses on one industry - Primary Textiles. It concentrates on the evolution and significance of this industry within an overall changing economic structure using Statistics Canada's data base, CANSIM, results of the Annual Survey of Manufactures (1988 to 1997) along with current findings of the Monthly Survey of Manufacturing (1998 and 1999).

The latest issue consists of the article "Strong growth propels the electrical and electronic products industry into the 21st century" by Russell Kowaluk. Despite the recent turmoil in global stock markets, manufacturing in Canada is finally reaping the benefits of prosperity on many accounts, and such positive indicators are prevalent in one of Canada's more innovative, and dynamic industries, the electrical and electronic products industry (Major Group 33). Following a brief pause in 1996, the value of shipments surpassed the $30 billion mark in 1997. Employment levels recorded their strongest growth in ten years, while international trade estimates again achieved record highs.

This review paper highlights the results of the 1997 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM), and details various prevailing economic indicators, illustrating the growth in the electrical and electronic products industry. These factors will be highlighted and analyzed, and the electrical and electronic products sector will be compared to other industries and measured relative to the manufacturing sector as a whole. Key current indicators to be investigated include the value of shipments and costs of production, international trade and labor statistics.

This study investigates the determinants of failure for new Canadian firms. It explores the role that certain factors play in conditioning the likelihood of survival - factors related to industry structure, firm demographics and macroeconomic cycles. It asks whether the determinants of failure are different for new start-ups than for firms that have reached adolescence, and if the magnitude of these differences is economically significant. It examines whether, after controlling for certain influences, failure rates differ across industries and provinces.

Two themes figure prominently in this analysis. The first is the impact that certain industry characteristics - such as average firm size and concentration - have on the entry/exit process, either through their influence on failure costs or on the intensity of competition. The second centres on how the dimensions of failure evolve over time as new firms gain market experience.

This paper presents data from several of the most important income series. These integrated series use the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) data up to and including reference year 1995. From 1996 onwards, the data come from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID).

The most recent issue contains "Non-Electrical machinery industries post strong growth in 1997, with market uncertainty on the horizon" by Russell Kowaluk. Based on statistical information provided by the Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM), this article explores the machinery industries (except electrical machinery), discussing various key statistics including shipment value, input costs and labour information. Other significant economic indicators to be assessed include monthly manufacturing estimates, international trade statistics, and rates of capacity utilization and investment.

Canada's machinery industries remained one of the fastest growing manufacturing sectors in 1997. However, during the later half of 1998 and into 1999, recent developments confirm that the tide of prosperity the industry has benefited from in recent years has tapered off. The ensuing article discusses the industry, detailing the results of the 1997 ASM, and highlighting the economic climate now challenging the sector.

The economic performance of this industry is examined through its value of shipments, trade performance, capital expenditures and, employment trends. All four variables point to growth and another year of recovery from the recession of the early 1990s. The Free Trade Agreements and construction activities are the driving forces behind this decade's trends for the non-metallic mineral products industries.

This paper describes the issues around updating the low income cut-offs as well as Statistics Canada's findings and proposes a course of action.