Section 3 About this product

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Purpose of the product
Definitions and concepts
Content
General methodology
Limitations
Comparison to other products/versions
Using with other products
Reference date

Purpose of the product

The Postal Codes by Federal Ridings File (PCFRF) was conceived as a tool for use with files containing postal codes. By using the postal code as a link, data from files may be organized and/or tabulated by federal electoral district (FED).

Definitions and concepts

Not applicable

Content

The PCFRF contains a total of 834,056 postal codes. The number of postal codes by FED, and whether those postal codes are linked to other FEDs, is provided in Table 3.1.

Each record of the file contains the following:

• six-character postal code
• federal electoral district code – 2003 Representation Order
• federal electoral district name – English
• federal electoral district name – French
• unique link: an indicator of whether the postal code is linked to more than one electoral district
• weight: for use in proportional allocation

Please see section 4, Technical Specifications for the data descriptions and definitions.

General methodology

Not applicable

Limitations

Some postal codes straddle one or more FED boundaries. The 'unique link' variable indicates if the postal code is linked to one or more FEDs.

Users often link the postal code in their data set to the FED in the PCFRF. When performing this link, users should be aware that the postal code in their data set may represent a mailing address used by a person, not necessarily where the person actually resides. Similarly, a postal code in a business-based mailing address may not necessarily indicate where the business activity took place.

Before using the Postal Codes by Federal Ridings File (PCFRF) with administrative files containing postal codes, users should be aware of some characteristics of postal codes that may affect their linkage to federal electoral districts on the PCFRF.

Postal delivery areas do not respect federal electoral district boundaries

A postal delivery area (as represented by the six-character postal code) may straddle one or more federal electoral district boundaries. This means that, in the Postal Code Federal Riding File, the same postal code may be linked to two or more (adjacent) federal electoral districts. Most federal electoral districts are affected in this way in both population centres and rural areas. Refer to Logical consistency later in this section for further details.

Postal codes may be associated with post office boxes at a postal station that is not in the same federal electoral district as the client using the post office box

The postal code associated with a lock box (post office box) may be geocoded to the physical location of the associated postal installation (post office). This could be located in a federal electoral district that is different from the ultimate destination of the mail delivery – the residential, industrial, or commercial location of the client renting the lock box.

Canada Post Corporation (CPC) regularly retires postal codes and may also reactivate retired postal codes for use again

Users of the PCFRF must keep in mind that the file contains only the postal codes from CPC that are active as of May 2011.

If the addresses of postal codes in a user's administrative file are not updated to May 2011, there may be non-matches with the PCFRF because some of the postal codes in the user's file may have been retired, or may even have been reactivated and re-assigned by CPC to another range of addresses outside the riding where they had previously been used.

Statistics Canada maintains an audit trail of the birth dates and retirement dates of postal codes in the PCCF. Users may wish to consult the Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF), Reference Guide (Catalogue no. 92-153-GWE), available on the Statistics Canada website. An updated version of the file including May 2011 postal codes is released in July 2011.

Comparison to other products/versions

Linkage of postal codes to more detailed geographic areas, such as dissemination area or dissemination block, is available in the Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF).

Using with other products

Not applicable

Reference date

The reference date is May 2011 for postal codes contained in the PCFRF. This is the same date as the postal codes contained in the Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF) product released in July 2011.

The geographic reference date is a date determined by Statistics Canada to finalize the geographic framework for which the census data are collected, tabulated and reported. The geographic reference date for the 2006 Census is January 1, 2006.

Table 3.1 Number of postal codes by federal electoral district