Business Ownership Diversity Dashboard

Visible minority status

Refers to whether a person is a visible minority as defined by the Employment Equity Act. The act defines visible minorities as "persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." Visible minority, n.i.e. refers to visible minority, not included elsewhere.

Immigrant status

Refers to whether the person is an immigrant, a non-immigrant or a non-permanent resident. Information on immigrant status and period of admission is available for immigrants admitted since 1980. Therefore, the immigrant categories include only those admitted since 1980.

Indigenous group

Refers to whether the person is First Nations (North American Indian), Métis or Inuk (Inuit). A person may be included in more than one of these three groups. Aboriginal peoples of Canada (referred to here as Indigenous peoples) are defined in the Constitution Act, 1982, Section 35 (2) as including Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada. First Nations (North American Indian) includes Status and non-Status Indians.

Gender

Refers to an individual's personal and social identity as a man, woman or non-binary person (a person who is not exclusively a man or a woman). A person's gender may differ from their sex at birth and from what is indicated on their current identification or legal documents, such as their birth certificate, passport or driver's licence. A person's gender may change over time. Some people may not identify with a specific gender.

Note: Given that the non-binary population is small, data aggregation to a two-category gender variable is sometimes necessary to protect the confidentiality of responses. In these cases, individuals in the category "non-binary persons" are distributed into the other two gender categories and are denoted by the "+" symbol.

For the purpose of this dashboard, the term "business" is used interchangeably with the term "enterprise."

An enterprise, as a statistical unit, refers to the highest level of the Business Register statistical hierarchy. Only enterprises reporting any type of business activity in the reference year for which the status was not "amalgamated," "bankrupt," "dissolved" or "ceased operations" in the Business Register are included.

The owner is the person estimated to have the most economic decision power in an enterprise. This is a linkage between a person and their demographic data, and an enterprise.

Population group classification is derived from the census and Longitudinal Immigration Database. For business owners who could not be linked to a census record, imputation for the classification status was done using donor imputation.

Estimates have been rounded to protect confidentiality, as required by the Statistics Act.

Data may not add to totals because of rounding.

Geography is based on the operating address of the enterprise.

Employment data for enterprise size are derived from the Canada Revenue Agency's payroll deductions (PD7) administrative data file. This file contains all employees for whom payroll deductions (Canada Pension Plan, employment insurance premiums and income tax deductions) were paid by the employer to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Revenue data for the revenue groups are derived from T2 Corporation Income Tax Returns, business income in T1 Income Tax and Benefit Returns, T5013 Statements of Partnership Income, and T3010 Registered Charity Information Returns submitted to the Canada Revenue Agency.

All industries are classified using the North American Industry Classification System Canada 2017.