Analysis

Description: Reports on Special Business Projects is an occasional series that focuses primarily on the results of special surveys or special projects conducted by the Centre for Special Business Projects. The reports cover a wide range of topics, which include business performance and trends, custom tabulations of business data, economic impact studies, new measurement frameworks and indicators to support program development, monitoring and performance assessment, territorial economic indicators and other special studies.

Description: This study compares the Government of Canada’s direct and indirect measures to support R&D, as captured by business innovation and growth support (BIGS) programs and the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentive program. BIGS and SR&ED are two central instruments that the Canadian government uses to stimulate R&D expenditures in the business sector.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Over the last several years, recreational screen time has been increasing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, recreational screen time rose among Canadian youth and adults, and those who increased screen time had poorer self-reported mental health. Using data from the 2017, 2018, and 2021 Canadian Community Health Survey, the objective of this study was to compare recreational screen time behaviours before (2018) and during (2021) the pandemic, looking at patterns by sociodemographic subgroups of the Canadian population.

Description: The availability of measures to operationalize allostatic load—the cumulative toll on the body of responding to stressor demands—in population health surveys may differ across years or surveys, hampering analyses on the entire sampled population. In this study, the impacts of variable selection and calculation method were evaluated to generate an allostatic load index applicable across all cycles of the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS). CHMS data were used to compare individual and population-level changes in scores for allostatic load indexes in which other commonly used measures were substituted for waist-to-hip ratio. Associations between the various constructs and indicators of socioeconomic position were then assessed to evaluate whether relationships were maintained across indexes.

Description: Using the Employment Insurance Coverage Survey, this paper studies the share of spouses or partners of biological or adoptive mothers who claimed or intended to claim parental benefits from 2006 to 2022.

Description: The papers published in the Analysis in Brief analytical series shed light on current economic issues. Aimed at a general audience, they cover a wide range of topics including National Accounts, business enterprises, trade, transportation, agriculture, the environment, manufacturing, science and technology, services, etc.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Using the Employment Insurance Coverage Survey, this paper studies the share of spouses or partners of biological or adoptive mothers who claimed or intended to claim parental benefits from 2006 to 2022.

Description: This paper looks at how extreme weather claims have impacted the insurance industry in Canada from 2020 to 2023. A specific focus is given to homeowners insurance, which during this time, homeowners insurance consumer price index exceeded all items inflation. Insurer profitability and consumer impacts are analyzed given the significant uptick in catastrophic claims. All four years analyzed ranked in the top 10 most costly claims years in Canadian history, costing billions each year. In addition, other contributing factors are explored to provide a robust overview of trends in profitability of the insurance industry.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: This study compares the Government of Canada’s direct and indirect measures to support R&D, as captured by business innovation and growth support (BIGS) programs and the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentive program. BIGS and SR&ED are two central instruments that the Canadian government uses to stimulate R&D expenditures in the business sector.

Description: Over the last several years, recreational screen time has been increasing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, recreational screen time rose among Canadian youth and adults, and those who increased screen time had poorer self-reported mental health. Using data from the 2017, 2018, and 2021 Canadian Community Health Survey, the objective of this study was to compare recreational screen time behaviours before (2018) and during (2021) the pandemic, looking at patterns by sociodemographic subgroups of the Canadian population.

Description: The availability of measures to operationalize allostatic load—the cumulative toll on the body of responding to stressor demands—in population health surveys may differ across years or surveys, hampering analyses on the entire sampled population. In this study, the impacts of variable selection and calculation method were evaluated to generate an allostatic load index applicable across all cycles of the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS). CHMS data were used to compare individual and population-level changes in scores for allostatic load indexes in which other commonly used measures were substituted for waist-to-hip ratio. Associations between the various constructs and indicators of socioeconomic position were then assessed to evaluate whether relationships were maintained across indexes.

Description: This series of regional maps shows the number of school-aged children eligible to primary and secondary instruction in English in Quebec by census subdivision, and the proportion of these children who attend or have attended an English-language school in Canada. All the information provided comes from the 2021 Census of Population and the 2022 Open Database of Educational Facilities.

Description: While many Canadians prefer to live in low-density housing, the supply of these units is linked to urban sprawl and attendant environmental and economic implications. This article examines recent trends of new housing supply and areas of urban sprawl in select Canadian cities. It also analyzes the characteristics of homeowners who live in neighbourhoods which have recently experienced urban sprawl.

Description: This study used Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS) administrative data within the Education and Labour Market Longitudinal Platform to compare enrolment and persistence in postsecondary education (PSE) among high school graduates in British Columbia with and without special needs across five cohorts from 2010/2011 to 2014/2015 before and after controlling for several sociodemographic characteristics and academic achievement.

Description: This analysis compares the investment efforts of official language minority (OLM) owned businesses depending on whether they are located in a rural or urban area. The study is based on a model that uses a seemingly unrelated regression equation (SURE) system estimator to simultaneously assess the impact of determinants that explain the investment of businesses in rural and urban areas and to statistically test the differences between the two areas.

Description: This article examines the association between parents' housing wealth and the values of houses owned by their adult children. It also documents parent and child co-ownership arrangements. The article follows a previous article that examined the role that parents' property ownership played in the likelihood of homeownership for children born in the 1990s. These articles use residential property and ownership information from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program for the 2021 reference year for all provinces and territories, except Quebec and Saskatchewan.

Description: This thematic series groups different statistical products related to Indigenous peoples. It features analytical documents of varying scopes, such as population profiles, reference materials, data products (including tables and factsheets), among other document types.

Description: This article uses 12 months of data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and LFS supplement for 2022, and the 2016 General Social Survey on Canadians at Work and Home to explore several quality of employment indicators based on Statistics Canada's Statistical Framework on Quality of Employment among the core working age First Nations people living off reserve and Métis (18 to 64 years), in the 10 provinces.

Description:

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.

Description:

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.

Description:

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.

Description:

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.

Description:

There has long been demand by both industry associations and government departments to combine manufacturing shipments data with trade data. Users are combining the two sources of data, for reasons such as determining an estimate of the domestic market for a given commodity, and using the resulting information for decision-making. This paper attempts to determine the feasibility of integrating manufacturing shipments data and trade data at the commodity level.

Description:

Data on Aboriginal status contained in this report are based on self-reported (Census) and/or observational (crime) data. They provide information on the nature and extent of Aboriginal involvement in urban, rural and reserve crime as well as the socio-demographic profile of the population of Saskatchewan.

Based on the 1996 Census data, the Aboriginal population in Saskatchewan tend to be younger, have lower educational levels, higher unemployment rates, and substantially lower incomes than the non-Aboriginal population. Crime rates on reserves were two times higher than rates in rural or urban areas of the province. For violent offences, the rate was almost five times higher on-reserve than in urban or rural areas.

In all three areas (reserves, urban and rural areas), a larger proportion of adults than youth was accused of a violent offence or an "other" Criminal Code offence. In contrast, youth were more often accused of a property offence than any other offence type. In urban areas, there is an over-representation of Aboriginal persons involved in the criminal justice system. In 1997, more than one-half (52%) of those accused in Prince Albert, Regina and Saskatoon were Aboriginal compared to their 9% proportion in the population of these cities.

A substantial difference in the male-female ratio of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal accused was found. Although the majority of all those accused were male, there was a greater proportion of Aboriginal female than non-Aboriginal female accused. Aboriginal accused tended to be younger than non-Aboriginal accused. Almost one-third (31%) of Aboriginal accused were aged 12 to 17 years of age compared to 23% of non-Aboriginal accused.

In the two cities where victim data were available (Regina and Prince Albert), there was a greater proportion of Aboriginal than non-Aboriginal victims of violent crime compared to their proportion in the overall population of these cities. In 1997, 42% of victims in Prince Albert and Regina were Aboriginal, compared to their 10% proportion in the population of these cities.

Description:

This research paper summarizes the approach, methodology and results of a study of the labour market behaviour of persons in various categories of attachment to the labour market. The analysis focuses on the transition probabilities for various categories of labour market attachment. Specifically, the study will include a discussion of the behavioural differences of the following groups:

a) a comparison of transitions from U (unemployed), M (marginally attached - wants work) and N (not attached - does not want work); b) a further breakdown of the transitions from U by active searchers, passive searchers, those on temporary layoff and short-term future starts; c) a further breakdown of transitions for M by reason for not searching; and d) a further breakdown of transitions from N by long-term future starts and other.

The study will be based on 1997-1999 Labour Force Survey data.

Description:

The latest issue consists of the article "Wood manufacturers have been stimulated by the strength of the domestic market" by Gilles Simard. The effects of the decrease in interest rates in Canada in 1996 were felt fully in 1997. The increased activity in housing development in Canada, and to a lesser extent, in the United States, has stimulated the wood industry. However, the crisis in Asia during the summer of 1997 was a heavy blow to British Columbia, the province that provides half of Canada's lumber. This article, based on the results of the 1997 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM), briefly describes changes in the industry in 1997 and 1998 and looks at recent events in.

Description:

The food-processing industry benefits from a wide a range of new advanced technologies. Technological advances include computer-based information and control systems, as well as sophisticated processing and packaging methods that enhance product quality, improve food safety and reduce costs. Continuous quality improvement and benchmarking are examples of related business practices.

This study examines the use of advanced technologies in the food-processing industry. It focuses not just on the incidence and intensity of use of these new technologies but also on the way technology relates to overall firm strategy. It also examines how technology use is affected by selected industry structural characteristics and how the adoption of technologies affects the performance of firms. It considers as well how the environment influences technological change. The nature and structure of the industry are shown to condition the competitive environment, the business strategies that are pursued, product characteristics and the role of technology.

Firms make strategic choices in light of technological opportunities and the risks and opportunities provided by their competitive environments. They implement strategies through appropriate business practices and activities, including the development of core competencies in the areas of marketing, production and human resources, as well as technology. Firms that differ in size and nationality choose to pursue different technological strategies. This study focuses on how these differences are reflected in the different use of technology for large and small establishments, for foreign and domestic plants and for plants in different industries.

Description:

Low income cut-offs (LICOs) are intended to convey the income level at which a family may be in straitened circumstances because it has to spend a greater portion of its income on the basics (food, clothing and shelter) than does the average family of similar size. The LICOs vary by family size and by size of community.

This publication provides a brief explanation of how the LICOs are derived and updated annually. In addition, it provides on a historical basis, LICOs for different family sizes by size of area of residence. LICOs are calculated based on the spending patterns of families on basic 'necessities' - food, shelter and clothing - as collected from the Survey of Household Spending (formerly referred to as the Family Expenditure Survey (FAMEX)).