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This paper highlights the Canadian Tourism Satellite Account (CTSA) developed by Statistics Canada. The CTSA provides an economic measure of the importance of tourism in terms of expenditures, Gross Domestic Product and employment for Canada. It permits a comparison of tourism with other industries within Canada since the concepts and methods used are based on the framework of the Canadian System of National Accounts. The study revealed that tourism is an important part of Canada's well diversified economy. This paper presents the results of the CTSA for reference year 2004.

This study was prepared by staff of the Research and Development Projects and Analysis Section, Income and Expenditure Accounts Division, Statistics Canada. The study was funded by the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Surveys are frequently required to produce estimates for subpopulations, sometimes for a single subpopulation and sometimes for several subpopulations in addition to the total population. When membership of a rare subpopulation (or domain) can be determined from the sampling frame, selecting the required domain sample size is relatively straightforward. In this case the main issue is the extent of oversampling to employ when survey estimates are required for several domains and for the total population. Sampling and oversampling rare domains whose members cannot be identified in advance present a major challenge. A variety of methods has been used in this situation. In addition to large-scale screening, these methods include disproportionate stratified sampling, two-phase sampling, the use of multiple frames, multiplicity sampling, panel surveys, and the use of multi-purpose surveys. This paper illustrates the application of these methods in a range of social surveys.

Randomized response strategies, which have originally been developed as statistical methods to reduce nonresponse as well as untruthful answering, can also be applied in the field of statistical disclosure control for public use microdata files. In this paper a standardization of randomized response techniques for the estimation of proportions of identifying or sensitive attributes is presented. The statistical properties of the standardized estimator are derived for general probability sampling. In order to analyse the effect of different choices of the method's implicit "design parameters" on the performance of the estimator we have to include measures of privacy protection in our considerations. These yield variance-optimum design parameters given a certain level of privacy protection. To this end the variables have to be classified into different categories of sensitivity. A real-data example applies the technique in a survey on academic cheating behaviour.

We examine overcoming the overestimation in using generalized weight share method (GWSM) caused by link nonresponse in indirect sampling. A few adjustment methods incorporating link nonresponse in using GWSM have been constructed for situations both with and without the availability of auxiliary variables. A simulation study on a longitudinal survey is presented using some of the adjustment methods we recommend. The simulation results show that these adjusted GWSMs perform well in reducing both estimation bias and variance. The advancement in bias reduction is significant.

Propensity weighting is a procedure to adjust for unit nonresponse in surveys. A form of implementing this procedure consists of dividing the sampling weights by estimates of the probabilities that the sampled units respond to the survey. Typically, these estimates are obtained by fitting parametric models, such as logistic regression. The resulting adjusted estimators may become biased when the specified parametric models are incorrect. To avoid misspecifying such a model, we consider nonparametric estimation of the response probabilities by local polynomial regression. We study the asymptotic properties of the resulting estimator under quasi-randomization. The practical behavior of the proposed nonresponse adjustment approach is evaluated on NHANES data.

In this paper a multivariate structural time series model is described that accounts for the panel design of the Dutch Labour Force Survey and is applied to estimate monthly unemployment rates. Compared to the generalized regression estimator, this approach results in a substantial increase of the accuracy due to a reduction of the standard error and the explicit modelling of the bias between the subsequent waves.

Estimation of small area (or domain) compositions may suffer from informative missing data, if the probability of missing varies across the categories of interest as well as the small areas. We develop a double mixed modeling approach that combines a random effects mixed model for the underlying complete data with a random effects mixed model of the differential missing-data mechanism. The effect of sampling design can be incorporated through a quasi-likelihood sampling model. The associated conditional mean squared error of prediction is approximated in terms of a three-part decomposition, corresponding to a naive prediction variance, a positive correction that accounts for the hypothetical parameter estimation uncertainty based on the latent complete data, and another positive correction for the extra variation due to the missing data. We illustrate our approach with an application to the estimation of Municipality household compositions based on the Norwegian register household data, which suffer from informative under-registration of the dwelling identity number.

This paper proposes an approach for small area prediction based on data obtained from periodic surveys and censuses. We apply our approach to obtain population predictions for the municipalities not sampled in the Brazilian annual Household Survey (PNAD), as well as to increase the precision of the design-based estimates obtained for the sampled municipalities. In addition to the data provided by the PNAD, we use census demographic data from 1991 and 2000, as well as a complete population count conducted in 1996. Hierarchically non-structured and spatially structured growth models that gain strength from all the sampled municipalities are proposed and compared.

Business surveys often use a one-stage stratified simple random sampling without replacement design with some certainty strata. Although weight adjustment is typically applied for unit nonresponse, the variability due to nonresponse may be omitted in practice when estimating variances. This is problematic especially when there are certainty strata. We derive some variance estimators that are consistent when the number of sampled units in each weighting cell is large, using the jackknife, linearization, and modified jackknife methods. The derived variance estimators are first applied to empirical data from the Annual Capital Expenditures Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and are then examined in a simulation study.

In large scaled sample surveys it is common practice to employ stratified multistage designs where units are selected using simple random sampling without replacement at each stage. Variance estimation for these types of designs can be quite cumbersome to implement, particularly for non-linear estimators. Various bootstrap methods for variance estimation have been proposed, but most of these are restricted to single-stage designs or two-stage cluster designs. An extension of the rescaled bootstrap method (Rao and Wu 1988) to stratified multistage designs is proposed which can easily be extended to any number of stages. The proposed method is suitable for a wide range of reweighting techniques, including the general class of calibration estimators. A Monte Carlo simulation study was conducted to examine the performance of the proposed multistage rescaled bootstrap variance estimator.

This product is a series of profiles for a number of census metropolitan areas, census agglomerations and communities across Canada with a large Aboriginal population, either in numbers or share of the area's total population. The series aims to present a demographic and socio-economic profile of the total Aboriginal population living in these areas. Demographic Data as well as information on living arrangements of children, education, labour, income, mobility, housing, and health are highlighted. While most of the focus is on adults, there is also limited information provided on children. Data showing comparisons between Aboriginal groups are provided for selected variables, as are comparisons with the non-Aboriginal population. Findings are based on the 2006 Census and the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Survey.

This product is a series of profiles for a number of census metropolitan areas, census agglomerations and communities across Canada with a large Aboriginal population, either in numbers or share of the area's total population. The series aims to present a demographic and socio-economic profile of the total Aboriginal population living in these areas. Demographic Data as well as information on living arrangements of children, education, labour, income, mobility, housing, and health are highlighted. While most of the focus is on adults, there is also limited information provided on children. Data showing comparisons between Aboriginal groups are provided for selected variables, as are comparisons with the non-Aboriginal population. Findings are based on the 2006 Census and the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Survey.

This product is a series of profiles for a number of census metropolitan areas, census agglomerations and communities across Canada with a large Aboriginal population, either in numbers or share of the area's total population. The series aims to present a demographic and socio-economic profile of the total Aboriginal population living in these areas. Demographic Data as well as information on living arrangements of children, education, labour, income, mobility, housing, and health are highlighted. While most of the focus is on adults, there is also limited information provided on children. Data showing comparisons between Aboriginal groups are provided for selected variables, as are comparisons with the non-Aboriginal population. Findings are based on the 2006 Census and the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Survey.

This product is a series of profiles for a number of census metropolitan areas, census agglomerations and communities across Canada with a large Aboriginal population, either in numbers or share of the area's total population. The series aims to present a demographic and socio-economic profile of the total Aboriginal population living in these areas. Demographic Data as well as information on living arrangements of children, education, labour, income, mobility, housing, and health are highlighted. While most of the focus is on adults, there is also limited information provided on children. Data showing comparisons between Aboriginal groups are provided for selected variables, as are comparisons with the non-Aboriginal population. Findings are based on the 2006 Census and the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Survey.

This product is a series of profiles for a number of census metropolitan areas, census agglomerations and communities across Canada with a large Aboriginal population, either in numbers or share of the area's total population. The series aims to present a demographic and socio-economic profile of the total Aboriginal population living in these areas. Demographic Data as well as information on living arrangements of children, education, labour, income, mobility, housing, and health are highlighted. While most of the focus is on adults, there is also limited information provided on children. Data showing comparisons between Aboriginal groups are provided for selected variables, as are comparisons with the non-Aboriginal population. Findings are based on the 2006 Census and the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Survey.

The Lower Mainland ecoregion profile is the first in an upcoming series of ecoregion profiles. The information presented includes a brief description of the physical setting, a snapshot of land cover and use as well as selected statistics on the changing socio-economy in the region. This ecoregion will be the site for many of the activities associated with the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

This publication provides quarterly information on operational and financial variables related to the scheduled and charter operations of all Canadian-licensed air carriers classified into reporting levels I and II. Operational data (passengers, passenger-kilometres, goods carried, goods tonne-kilometres, etc.) and financial data (operating revenues, operating expenses, employment expenses) are presented. This publication also includes data highlights and some financial performance indicators and productivity measures.

The air fare data included in this publication relate to the scheduled operations of major Canadian air carriers. This publication provides information on average fares by sector and fare type group and average domestic fares for ten selected cities of enplanement. It also provides information on the distribution of passengers and passenger-kilometres by sector and fare type group. A series of air fare indexes by sector and fare type group is also presented. In addition to annual data, this publication also presents quarterly data. It also includes data highlights and a brief analysis.

This publication provides monthly information on key operational variables related to the scheduled and charter operations of Air Canada and WestJet. Operational data include passengers, passenger-kilometres, available seat-kilometres, goods carried, goods tonne-kilometres, hours flown and fuel. In addition to monthly data, this publication also presents annual data. Charts and data highlights supplement the tables.

This report provides trends on public school enrolments, educators and expenditures. It uses figures provided by provincial and territorial departments of education on public elementary and secondary schools.

Blaise has been in development in Statistics Canada since 1997. Over the years, the complexity of applications that have been deployed using this software is constantly increasing. Last year a very interesting approach has been developed to read bio-metrics directly from medical instruments, and input them into the Blaise software. This presentation will elaborate on this new usage of the software that just opens the door to an infinity of different applications and the added data quality of performing collection in this manner.

In this paper the background of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language and the involvement of Statistics Netherlands in the Dutch Taxonomy Project are discussed. The discussion predominantly focuses on the statistical context of using XBRL and the Dutch Taxonomy for expressing data terms to companies.

Statistics Canada has embarked on a program of increasing and improving the usage of imaging technology for paper survey questionnaires. The goal is to make the process an efficient, reliable and cost effective method of capturing survey data. The objective is to continue using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to capture the data from questionnaires, documents and faxes received whilst improving the process integration and Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QC) of the data capture process. These improvements are discussed in this paper.

In a multi-divisional initiative within the U. S. Census Bureau, a highly sophisticated and innovative system was developed and implemented for the capturing, tracking, and scanning of respondent data that implements Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR), Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Optical Mark Recognition (OMR), and keying technology with heavy emphasis on error detection and control. The system, known as the integrated Computer Assisted Data Entry (iCADE) System, provides digital imaging of respondent questionnaires which are then processed by a combination of imaging algorithms, sent through Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) to collect check box data, and automatically collect and send only write-in areas to data-keying staff for the data capture process. These capabilities have produced great efficiencies in the data capture process and have led to a novel and efficient approach to post-collection activities.

RTI International is currently conducting a longitudinal education study. One component of the study involved collecting transcripts and course catalogs from high schools that the sample members attended. Information from the transcripts and course catalogs also needed to be keyed and coded. This presented a challenge because the transcripts and course catalogs were collected from different types of schools, including public, private, and religious schools, from across the nation and they varied widely in both content and format. The challenge called for a sophisticated system that could be used by multiple users simultaneously. RTI developed such a system possessing all the characteristics of a high-end, high-tech, multi-user, multitask, user-friendly and low maintenance cost high school transcript and course catalog keying and coding system. The system is web based and has three major functions: transcript and catalog keying and coding, transcript and catalog keying quality control (keyer-coder end), and transcript and catalog coding QC (management end). Given the complex nature of transcript and catalog keying and coding, the system was designed to be flexible and to have the ability to transport keyed and coded data throughout the system to reduce the keying time, the ability to logically guide users through all the pages that a type of activity required, the ability to display appropriate information to help keying performance, and the ability to track all the keying, coding, and QC activities. Hundreds of catalogs and thousands of transcripts were successfully keyed, coded, and verified using the system. This paper will report on the system needs and design, implementation tips, problems faced and their solutions, and lessons learned.

Keynote address

Background: Evaluation of the coverage that results from linking routinely collected administrative hospital data with survey data is an important preliminary step to undertaking analyses based on the linked file. Data and methods: To evaluate the coverage of the linkage between data from cycle 1.1 of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and in-patient hospital data (Health Person-Oriented Information or HPOI), the number of people admitted to hospital according to HPOI was compared with the weighted estimate for CCHS respondents who were successfully linked to HPOI. Differences between HPOI and the linked and weighted CCHS estimate indicated linkage failure and/or undercoverage. Results: According to HPOI, from September 2000 through November 2001, 1,572,343 people (outside Quebec) aged 12 or older were hospitalized. Weighted estimates from the linked CCHS, adjusted for agreement to link and plausible health number, were 7.7% lower. Coverage rates were similar for males and females. Provincial rates did not differ from those for the rest of Canada, although differences were apparent for the territories. Coverage rates were significantly lower among people aged 75 or older than among those aged 12 to 74.

The Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) provides timely estimates of health information at the sub-provincial level. We explore two main issues that prevented us from using physical activity data from CCHS cycle 3.1 (2005) as part of the Profile of Women's Health in Manitoba. CCHS uses the term 'moderate' to describe physical effort that meets Canadian minimum guidelines, whereas 'moderate' conversely describes sub-minimal levels of activity. A Manitoba survey of physical activity interrogates a wider variety of activities to measure respondents' daily energy expenditure. We found the latter survey better suited to our needs and more likely a better measure of women's daily physical activity and health.

This paper will focus on establishment survey questionnaire design guidelines. More specifically, it will discuss the process involved in transitioning a set of guidelines written for a broad, survey methodological audience to a more narrow, agency-specific audience of survey managers and analysts. The process involved the work of a team comprised of individuals from across the Census Bureau's Economic Directorate, working in a cooperative and collaborative manner. The team decided what needed to be added, modified, and deleted from the broad starting point, and determined how much of the theory and experimental evidence found in the literature was necessary to include in the guidelines. In addition to discussing the process, the paper will also describe the end result: a set of questionnaire design guidelines for the Economic Directorate.

A major issue in official statistics is the availability of objective measures supporting the based-on-fact decision process. Istat has developed an Information System to assess survey quality. Among other standard quality indicators, nonresponse rates are systematically computed and stored for all surveys. Such a rich information base permits analysis over time and comparisons among surveys. The paper focuses on the analysis of interrelationships between data collection mode and other survey characteristics on total nonresponse. Particular attention is devoted to the extent to which multi-mode data collection improves response rates.

This report presents the results of the 3rd Consensus Conference on Health Indicators that was convened in March 2009, including information that was presented at the conference, a summary of the consultation process leading up to the event, and the priority health areas deemed most important for future indicator development work.

The conference marked the 10th anniversary of the Health Indicators project, a collaboration between Statistics Canada and Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). The goal of the project is to provide health regions, health care providers and the public in general with reliable and comparable data on the health of Canadians and to assist stakeholders and decision makers in the use and interpretation of the indicator data.

This guide presents information of interest to users of data from the Survey of Household Spending, which gathers information on the spending habits, dwelling characteristics and household equipment of Canadian households. The survey covers private households in the 10 provinces. (The territories are surveyed every second year, starting in 1999.)

This guide includes definitions of survey terms and variables, as well as descriptions of survey methodology and data quality. One section describes the various statistics that can be created using expenditure data (e.g., budget share, market share, aggregates and medians).

With the latest release of the bilateral Purchasing Power Parities estimates for Canada and the U.S., an improved projection methodology for the non-benchmark year has been employed. This note summarizes the new methodology and its rationale.

Statistics Canada produces monthly import and export merchandise trade price indexes. For the majority of these prices, Statistics Canada uses a variety of proxy measures to derive the price index in lieu of collecting observed import and export prices. The ability of these proxy measures to reflect international trade price movements during times of exchange rate volatility is limited. For this reason, the constant dollar trade estimates derived using these proxy price indexes have been refined with constant dollar adjustments following the appreciation of the Canadian exchange rate beginning at the end of 2002. This paper explains the rational and methodology behind these adjustments, as well as the impact on published trade and GDP estimates.

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a parent-reported instrument designed to provide information on children's behaviours and relationships. The SDQ consists of 25 items which are grouped into five subscales: (1) pro-social, (2) inattention-hyperactivity, (3) emotional symptoms, (4) conduct problems, and (5) peer problems. The SDQ was used to provide information on children aged 2 to 5 years in the 2006 Aboriginal Children's Survey (ACS). Though validated on general populations, the constructs of the SDQ have not been validated for off-reserve First Nations, Métis and Inuit children in Canada. The first objective of this evaluation is to examine if the five subscales of the SDQ demonstrate construct validity and reliability for off-reserve First Nations, Métis and Inuit children. The second objective is to examine if an alternative set of subscales, using the 25 SDQ items, may be more valid and reliable for off-reserve First Nations, Métis and Inuit children.

With the release of the Financial Flow Accounts (FFA) on December 1st and the National Balance Sheet Accounts (NBSA) on December 14th, the Income and Expenditure Accounts Division will be publishing revised sector and category detail on CANSIM.

This report describes sampling and weighting procedures used in the 2006 Census. It reviews the history of these procedures in Canadian censuses, provides operational and theoretical justifications for them, and presents the results of the evaluation studies of these procedures.

Government financial reports are based on the organisation of each individual government and on their accounting and reporting practices. There is therefore little uniformity from one level of government to another or from one province to another. The Financial Management System (FMS) is an analytical framework designed to produce statistical series that are both consistent and compatible.

Written in plain English, the Financial Management System (FMS) manual was designed to assist you in better understanding the framework of the Financial Management System (FMS). It will explain the strengths and caveats of the FMS and will provide you with clear explanations of what is included in each revenue source and each expenditure function.

In 2008, Statistics Canada conducted the first Agricultural Water Use Survey. This pilot survey is part of the Canadian Environment Sustainability Indicators initiative and collects information on volumes of water used for irrigation, irrigated areas, irrigation practices and the quality of water used for agricultural purposes. This technical paper describes the methodology used for the pilot survey and includes recommendations for future cycles of the survey. The validation process seems to indicate that the method used to estimate the volumes of water used and the irrigated areas calculated underestimates the results. The report gives recommendations to minimize this bias in the next iterations of the survey. First, it is recommended to simplify the level of information collected by the survey; to review the sampling methodology; and to examine other means of collecting information on volumes of water used for irrigation. This pilot version of the survey remains a reliable source for consistent data on agricultural water use.

In this paper, we present the methodology developed by Statistics Canada to calculate the average annual water yield for Canada. Water yield, for the purposes of this paper, is defined as the amount of freshwater derived from unregulated flow (m³ s^-1) measurements for a given geographic area over a defined period of time. The methodology is applied to the 1971 to 2000 time period.

This research was conducted to fill data gaps in Statistics Canada's water statistics program. These gaps exist because estimates of freshwater flow for Canada have not been calculated regularly and have been produced using a variety of methods that do not necessarily generate comparable results. The methodology developed in this study produced results that are coherent through space and time. These results will be used in the future to investigate changes in water yield on a more disaggregated basis.

To achieve the water yield estimate a database of natural streamflow observations from 1971 to 2000 was compiled. The streamflow values were then converted to a runoff depth and interpolated using ordinary kriging to produce spatial estimates of runoff. The spatial estimates were then scaled to create a National estimate of water yield as a thirty-year average. The methodology and results were then validated using a stability analysis and several techniques involving uncertainty. The result of the methodology indicates that the thirty-year average water yield for Canada is 3435 km³.