Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada (Statistique Canada) is the national statistical agency of Canada.
Contents
Description
The agency is led by a chief statistician.
The agency is overseen by the minister of Innovation, Science and Industry.
History
The Constitution Act of 1867 required that the government conduct a census every 10 years. The first such census was administered in 1871.
In 1912, responsibility for the census was transferred from the ministry of Agriculture to the ministry of Trade and Commerce. The Dominion Bureau of Statistics was established by the Statistics Act in 1918.
The Statistics Act of 1971 renamed the bureau to Statistics Canada and established that a census of population and a census of agriculture would be conducted every 5 years.
Geography
Canada is primarily divided into the provinces and territories. These are then further divided into census divisions. In some provinces, these correspond to counties and county equivalents. (For example, British Columbia uses regional districts.) On the other hand, the territories and Newfoundland and Labrador have no such political boundaries, so divisions are necessarily created by Statistics Canada. Only the Yukon Territory is left undivided.
Census divisions are further partitioned into census subdivisions. These often correspond to municipalities.
Finally, dissemination areas comprise 400-700 people.
Census metropolitan areas (CMA) are groups of census subdivisions comprising an urban area with a population of at least 100,000. CMAs can cross provincial boundaries, but the only current example of this is Ottawa-Gatineau.
Usage
The agency publishes the peer-reviewed journal Survey Methodology.
See the following pages for specific surveys and products.