Analysis

This article examines driving and commuting patterns from a gender perspective. Trip chaining, the practice of stopping at intermediate points during a journey, is analyzed using data from the 2005 Canadian Vehicle Survey. Next-stage destinations and the number of stops made while driving are compared for men and women.

Snowblower ownership is affected by a variety of socio-economic, cultural and climatic factors. This article shows household ownership of gas-powered snowblowers in 2006, by province, using data from the Households and the Environment Survey. It also presents data on snowblower ownership in certain cities, juxtaposed with data on average snowfall.

This annual report presents environmental indicators for water quality, air quality, and greenhouse gas emissions. The water quality indicator documents the distribution of water quality at selected sites across Canada. The air quality indicator reports national and regional trends in ground-level ozone, a key component of smog, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The greenhouse gas indicator describes the trend in emissions and the contribution to the trend by energy production, energy consumption and other factors. The socio-economic context provides links to economic performance and social progress. The indicators are intended to assist those in government responsible for developing policy and measuring performance, while also helping individual Canadians who want to know more about the trends in their environment.

The indicator reports from 2005 to 2007 can be found below. All later indicator reports can be found on Environment Canada's site: www.ec.gc.ca/indicateurs-indicators/.

More detail on some of the socio-economic information found in the Environment Canada indicator reports can be found here: National economic accounts: Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators

This paper will update the analysis of what the retail trade patterns were for 2006 Christmas period. In addition, analysis is available for the first time for three of Canada's Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). Comparable December retail sales data for Toronto, Vancouver and Montréal will be analyzed against an 'average' of the January to November period. Comparisons will also be made against the month of December in previous years. Analysis will also include a decomposition of the growth of retail sales.

This article summarizes the background, history and rationale for the Canadian Health Measures Survey, and provides an overview of the objectives, methods and analysis plans.

This overview describes the sampling strategy used to meet the collection and estimation requirements of the Canadian Health Measures Survey.

This article describes how the Canadian Health Measures Survey has addressed the ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) arising from the survey. The development of appropriate procedures and the rationale behind them are discussed in detail for some specific ELSI.

This article describes some of the logistical and operational requirement and procedures employed to perform the clinic component of the Canadian Health Measures Survey.

This article summarizes the design, methods and results emerging from the Canadian Health Measures Survey pre-test, which took place from October through December 2004 in Calgary, Alberta.

This paper examines the effect of aberrant observations in the Capital, Labour, Energy, Materials and Services (KLEMS) database and a method for dealing with them. The level of disaggregation, data construction and economic shocks all potentially lead to aberrant observations that can influence estimates and inference if care is not exercised. Commonly applied pre-tests, such as the augmented Dickey-Fuller and the Kwaitkowski, Phillips, Schmidt and Shin tests, need to be used with caution in this environment because they are sensitive to unusual data points. Moreover, widely known methods for generating statistical estimates, such as Ordinary Least Squares, may not work well when confronted with aberrant observations. To address this, a robust method for estimating statistical relationships is illustrated.

Gross domestic expenditures on research and development (GERD) represents total research and development (R&D) expenditures performed in a country's national territory during a given year. GERD includes R&D performed within a country and funded from abroad but excludes payments sent abroad for R&D performed in other countries.

The richest source of information on the socio-economic condition of Canadian society is the Census of Population conducted every five years. Canadian Social Trends will be highlighting some of the key trends observed in data released from the 2006 Census.

This publication presents recent information on the performance and funding of Federal government expenditures on scientific activities, 2007/2008. The statistics presented are derived from the survey of science and technology (S&T) activities of federal departments and agencies. The data in this release are consistent with expenditures of departments and agencies as reported in the Main Estimates 2007/2008, but do not reflect changes to 2007/2008 spending plans which may result from supplementary estimates or other departmental planning decisions.

The Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS) is Canada's national survey that gathers information about adults and children whose daily activities are limited by a physical, mental, or other health-related condition or problem.

This report presents some basic information about the survey and an overview of the methodological and content changes between the 2001 and 2006 PALS. The major difference involves a change in coverage resulting from the inclusion of a number of aboriginal communities, the addition of the three territories, and the modification to the definition of collective dwellings.

This service bulletin contains historical and current data on research and development (R&D) expenditures and personnel in Canada, by industry. In Canada, the industrial or business enterprise sector is the largest R&D performer.

This publication presents financial and operating statistics for telecommunications services industries, except the Cable and Other Program Distribution industry

The information in this document is intended primarily to be used by scientific and technological (S&T) policy makers, both federal and provincial, largely as a basis for inter-provincial and inter-sectoral comparisons. The statistics are aggregates of the provincial government and provincial research organization science surveys conducted by Statistics Canada under contract with the provinces, and cover the period 2001/2002 to 2005/2006.

This fact sheet focuses on harvesting activities and the importance of country food among Inuit in the north of Canada. Data for each of the four Inuit Land Claim Settlement regions are provided. The fact sheet is one in a series based on data from the 2001 Aboriginal Peoples Survey. This fact sheet is associated with an article that was previously released entitled: Harvesting and Community Well-being Among Inuit in the Canadian Arctic: Preliminary Findings from the 2001 Aboriginal Peoples Survey - Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic. This article is available at : http://www.statcan.gc.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=89-619-X

This fact sheet uses the Children and Youth component of the 2001 Aboriginal Peoples Survey (APS) to provide information on the health of Inuit children (aged less than 15). Specific themes covered include: breastfeeding, health status, chronic conditions, dental care, eating breakfast, and access to health care. Results are presented for all Inuit and specifically for those in the four Inuit land claim settlement regions in the Arctic: Nunatsiavut in northern Labrador, the territory of Nunavut, Nunavik in northern Quebec, and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region in the Northwest Territories. Where possible, results for Inuit children are compared to those of North American Indian, Métis and all Canadian children.

The higher education sector is composed of all universities, colleges of technology and other institutes of postsecondary education, whatever their source of finance or legal status. It also includes all research institutes, experimental stations and clinics operating under the direct control of, or administered by, or associated with higher education establishments.

This paper illustrates how the statistical architecture of Canada's System of National Accounts can be utilized to study the size and composition of a specific economic sector. For illustrative purposes, the analysis focuses on the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, and hence, on the set of technology-producing industries and technology outputs most commonly associated with what is often termed the high-technology economy. Using supply and use tables from the input-output accounts, we develop integrated ICT industry and commodity classifications that link domestic technology producers to their principal commodity outputs. We then use these classifications to generate a series of descriptive statistics that examine the size of Canada's high-technology economy along with its underlying composition. In our view, these integrated ICT classifications can be used to develop a richer profile of the high-technology economy than one obtains from examining its industry or commodity dimensions in isolation.

Results from the Survey of Innovation 2003 raised some interesting questions. First, an unexpected one-third of establishments in R&D services were not innovative. According to the guidelines of the Oslo Manual, innovative establishments are those that introduced a new or significantly improved product or process on to the market or into production, within a specified interval. Second, many of these non-innovative establishments indicated that satisfying existing customers was irrelevant to their firms success. This was very different response from all other types of firms.

This working paper provides a potential explanation of these unexpected results, as well as an overview of available information on establishments in R&D services (NAICS 5417) in the context of professional services generally. The paper assembles descriptive data to show that non-innovative establishments in R&D services differ significantly from other non-innovative establishments and, while not innovative, they are nevertheless highly inventive. It presents some evidence to suggest that they are venture firms (firms relying on infusions of investment capital rather than revenues from sales to sustain their operations) and proposes a specific set of indicators that would facilitate resolution of the nature of firms in this industry group.

No agreed-upon definition exists of what constitutes high income, either in dollar cut-offs or as a percentage of the population. Researchers have used widely varying methods, producing widely varying outcomes. This paper presents various criteria for defining high income and looks at some of the characteristics and behaviours of high-income taxfilers under these definitions. Income taxes paid and effective tax rates are also examined.

In addition to sharing a border, Canada and the United States share many demographic and economic characteristics. Both countries have aging populations and low unemployment rates. Consumer spending has also been similar, although differences exist in certain areas. A comparison of spending patterns in Canada and the U.S. between the early 1980s and 2003.

Challenges associated with the integration of immigrants often extend beyond the first generation. If children of immigrants experience similar impediments to social and economic assimilation as their parents did, then low socioeconomic status may be transmitted between generations. Such scenarios of second-class disadvantage may not apply to Canada. Even if immigrant earnings deficits relative to the native-born are increasing, it does not necessarily mean that children of immigrants will be worse off than the children of Canadian-born parents.

Prime-aged couples experienced a moderate decline in RPP coverage over the last two decades, as the substantial growth in wives labour market participation and the slight increase in their RPP coverage only partially offset a substantial decline in husbands coverage. On average, retirement savings of families rose over the last two decades, but the distribution became more unequal. To a large extent, the uneven growth in retirement savings mirrors the sharp increase in family earnings inequality since the early 1980s.

Worldwide, depression is the leading cause of years lived with disability. It can affect many aspects of life, including work. In fact, the impact of depression on job performance has been estimated to be greater than that of chronic conditions. In 2002, almost 4% of employed Canadians aged 25 to 64 had had an episode of depression in the previous year. These workers had high odds of reducing work activity because of a long-term health condition, having at least one mental health disability day in the past two weeks, and being absent from work in the past week. In addition, depression was associated with reduced work activity and disability days two years later.

In this paper, we provide an international comparison of the growth in Canadian and U.S. manufacturing industries over the 1961-to-2003 period. We find that average annual growth rates of labour productivity growth were almost identical in the Canadian and U.S. manufacturing sectors during this period. But the sources of labour productivity growth differed in the two countries. Intermediate input deepening was a more important source of labour productivity growth in Canada than in the United States, while investment in capital and multifactor productivity (MFP) growth were more important in the United States than in Canada. After 1996, labour productivity growth in Canada was lower than in the United States. The post-1996 slower labour productivity growth in Canada relative to the United States was due to slower growth in MFP and slower growth in capital intensity. The slower MFP growth in Canada accounted for 60% of Canada - United States labour productivity growth difference, and slower growth in capital intensity accounted for 30%. The slower MFP growth in the Canadian manufacturing sector relative to that of the United States after 1996 was due to lower MFP growth in the computer and electronic products industry. The slower growth in capital'labour ratio in the Canadian manufacturing compared with the United States after 1996 is related to the changes in relative prices of capital and labour inputs in the two countries.

This paper examines whether cross-border shopping has taken flight with the loonie. It finds that measured by the number of trips to the US, the average spent per trip or even online purchases, the recent increase in cross-border shopping has been minimal, especially outside of Ontario. More notable is the drop in US visitors to Canada. Meanwhile, overseas travel in and out of Canada continues to grow rapidly.

The transition to adulthood is often viewed as a period where young people move by stages into adult roles: completing their schooling, leaving their parents' home, acquiring permanent work, finding a partner or spouse and becoming a parent. In recent years, social scientists have found that the transition to adulthood is taking longer to complete. Using census data to compare young adults in 1971 to those in 2001, it assesses just how lengthy the delay has become.

This annual report presents environmental indicators for water quality, air quality, and greenhouse gas emissions. The water quality indicator documents the distribution of water quality at selected sites across Canada. The air quality indicator reports national and regional trends in ground-level ozone, a key component of smog, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The greenhouse gas indicator describes the trend in emissions and the contribution to the trend by energy production, energy consumption and other factors. The socio-economic context provides links to economic performance and social progress. The indicators are intended to assist those in government responsible for developing policy and measuring performance, while also helping individual Canadians who want to know more about the trends in their environment.

The indicator reports from 2005 to 2007 can be found below. All later indicator reports can be found on Environment Canada's site: www.ec.gc.ca/indicateurs-indicators/.

More detail on some of the socio-economic information found in the Environment Canada indicator reports can be found here: National economic accounts: Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators

Since 2000, Statistics Canada has produced a themed report on population health in its " How Healthy are Canadians?" series. This publication, which is released on an occasional basis, is released free of charge to subscribers of Health Reports, a quarterly peer-reviewed journal.

The series Farm Environmental Management in Canada presents key information on agri-environmental practices used on Canadian farms. The series includes several articles on themes such as manure storage, manure application, water management, chemical inputs use and sustainable land management practices. These analyses are supported by data from the 2001 Farm Environmental Management Survey (FEMS) and supplemented with information from the 2001 Census of Agriculture. FEMS is the only dedicated national source of information on a broad range of farming practices that impact on the environment.

The FEMS survey collects farm-level information on manure management practices, sustainable grazing systems, crop nutrient management, pesticides application practices, land and water management practices (including irrigation farming practices), and whole farm environmental management. It provides benchmark information for anyone with an interest in agri-environmental issues.

This annual report provides a summary of the key findings from Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators. It presents a synopsis for each of the environmental indicators: water quality, air quality, and greenhouse gas emissions. The report provides answers to the following questions for each of the three indicators: What is the issue? What is happening? What does it mean? Why is it happening? The indicators are intended to assist those in government responsible for developing policy and measuring performance, while also helping individual Canadians who want to know more about the trends in their environment.

The indicator reports from 2005 to 2007 can be found below. All later indicator reports can be found on Environment Canada's site: www.ec.gc.ca/indicateurs-indicators/.

More detail on some of the socio-economic information found in the Environment Canada indicator reports can be found here: National economic accounts: Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators

This publication presents a series of research articles based on cross-sectional data collected from Cycle 2.2 of the Canadian Community Health Survey, focusing on Nutrition. It also provides links to tables, other research articles and information about the survey.

This paper offers empirical evidence on the actual rates and forms of economic depreciation for a comprehensive set of assets. Using a Canadian micro database on the purchase and disposal of capital goods from Statistics Canada's Capital Expenditure Survey, the study estimates depreciation rates for 36 asset categories, which represent half of the Canadian business capital stock. Depreciation rates for the remaining assets are calibrated using the average age-price relationship from the estimation and surveyed service lives obtained from the Capital Expenditure Survey. The impact of the estimated depreciation rates on the Canadian capital stock and depreciation allowances is also presented.

This report presents the highlights of the age and sex data release from the 2006 Census of Population. Numerous colour maps, figures and tables illustrate the latest demographic trends and geographic patterns observed from the published data.

Update on family and labour studies is the newsletter of the Family and Labour Studies Division, a research arm of Statistics Canada devoted to analysis of the well-being of children and families and to how they interact with the labour market and social programs.

This bulletin provides readers with articles and other features based on the surveys of cultural industries, institutions and activities available through the Culture Statistics Program. Using tables, graphs and an easy-to-read format, each quarterly issue brings together highlights of recently released data as well as several topical articles in the field of Canadian culture.

Typical analytical studies deal with the economic impact of culture; culture trade and investment; the culture labour force; culture tourism; government expenditures on culture; consumption of culture; and the health and vitality of culture sectors. These sectors include visual arts, performing arts, heritage, book publishing, periodicals, sound recording, television and radio, and film and video. The publication also introduces new initiatives of the Culture Statistics Program - new research, data gaps being filled, the establishment of topical working groups or first-time integration of data from diverse sources.

Immigrants to Canada must face numerous difficulties during their first years in the country, the two most important being to find an appropriate job and language barrier. But does a better knowledge of official languages increase the chances for an immigrant of occupying a high-skilled job, a job in the intended occupation, a job similar to the one they had before immigrating, a job related to their training or field of study, or to have a higher hourly rate?

In an attempt to answer this question, the data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) were used. In the LSIC, a cohort of immigrants was interviewed at three points in time being 6 months, 2 years and 4 years after arrival in the country. For this study, we used the information about the job occupied at the time of each interview, as well as the English and French self-assessed spoken ability levels at each of these moments.