Thursday, September 27, 2007

Access to DLI for Retired, Sessional Faculty

Question

What are the access rights to the DLI data for retired, sessional faculty?

Answer

That depends on a few variables. Is your faculty member currently retired AND a sessional? If so, the answer is yes. If the retired faculty member has emeritus status, the answer is also yes. But if he's a retired-sessional and has no emeritus status, then I'd think not.

Emeritus professors are still treated by universities as part of their staff. They are given office space, access to research facilities and continue to be listed as part of the faculty at their institution. If the professor has emeritus status then he is considered an eligible user of DLI data.

In the case of a student who was doing research with a retired professor who did not have emeritus status, the student met the criteria of the licence (an educator, student, or staff member of good standing with an educational institution participating in DLI). The alumnus no longer met this criteria. Results of the research can be shared with the alumnus, but data cannot.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Soybean & Canola Crushings

Question

I have a user looking for soybean and canola crushings. The data is available for 1971 to 1992 but after that date there are no data points. Confidentiality is stated as the reason. Could you explain why?

The cansim series are V383415 and V1459122.

Answer

The data has been suppressed to meet the confidentiality requirements of the Statistics Act. Here are the details I obtained from the Agriculture Division when I asked them about this table:

"As per the footnotes for the table, the data is indeed suppressed to meet the confidentiality requirements of the Statistics Act. As for the specific reason that it might be suppressed, here are some possibilities such as not having enough respondents available to guarantee confidentiality, having one or a few operations contributing an unacceptably high proportion of the value as compared to the other operations or that the data obtained from the surveys is deemed too unreliable to be published for that type of crop."

Note: If you go to the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association - you can get monthly figures from 2005 - July 2007.

Emigration/return of foreign born professionals

Question

A student is doing a research on the topic of emigration or return migration of foreign-born professionals in Canada, 1990 to 2003 for her graduate research methods course. Is there an appropriate data set to address this topic?

Answer

This data doesn't appear to be available in a DLI product.

Our Demography Division has data on emigration and returning emigrants but not data on emigration or return emigration of foreign born professionals in particular.

Some of the data your graduate student was hoping for might be available as a fee based custom request from the longitudinal administrative data (LAD) file.

Here is what the author division told me about the data that might be available as a fee based custom request:

"Our longitudinal administrative data (LAD) contain variables from the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB). A couple of variables (from IMDB) relate to field of work: Immigrant's Intended Occupation and Immigrant's Industry Codes. On the LAD, we also have NAICS coding to identify primary and secondary industry of employment. This industry information is captured for all individuals for whom we have a T4 record.

By linking to the IMDB, we identify immigrants who arrived to Canada starting in 1980 (landing year). This allows a researcher to then study the incomes and family characteristics of this group of individuals through the years, up to 2005. With the LAD, I believe we can also identify return migrants, although we could not always distinguish foreign-born from Canadian-born unless that individual was already identified as an immigrant through IMDB.

The LAD Data Dictionary (12-585-XIE -
http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=12-585-X)
which contains a complete glossary of LAD variables, is always a good starting point. I suggest your client consult the dictionary and examine the different variables that can be used. Once we have more details on the output required, we can further discuss feasibility of project and related costs."

Monday, September 24, 2007

2006 Community Profile for Gimli (Town)

Question

I can't find Gimli (Town) in the 2006 Profiles, although Gimli (Rural Municipality) is there. Is the profile hiding somewhere?

Answer

Gimli (Town) was amalgamated with and is now part of Gimli (Rural Municipality).
(Source: Manitoba Community Profiles
http://www.communityprofiles.mb.ca/cgi-bin/csd/index.cgi?id=4618031)

As the town has been amalgamated into the rural municipality, there is no 2006 Community Profile for the town. Data for the town is now included in the Community Profile for the area into which it was amalgamated, Gimli (Rural municipality). If you run a place name search for Gimli in the 2006 Community Profile, it will point you to the profile for Gimli (Rural Municipality).

2006 Community Profiles

Question

I have been looking at the 2006 Community Profiles and I am sort of upset and disappointed by them. I suppose I should have realized that the wave of amalgamation/ "dissolving" of communities would have significant impact on the easy of use of Census data but it is only recently I have realized the implications.

I used to introduce Census data using the Community Profiles and would ask a class member to give me a name of a small town they were from. Invariably in the 1996 and 2001 Community Profiles I would get a nice display of info which always seemed to impress the students.

Don't try the same thing for 2006 - you will look very unimpressive!!

Because of amalgamation/dissolution (sic?) many "smaller" communities have completely disappeared from Community Profiles - two that I have come across, and there are hundreds, are Simcoe, a town of 15,000 and Lindsay, a town of about the same.

Simcoe has become "Norfolk" which is the "City" and the CA name and is included in an area with about 60,000 people. Similarly Lindsay is now Kawartha Lakes which is a "City", a CA and a CD (!) of about 75,000 people which covers about 15 preexisting communities.

So the answer is to use Urban Areas to get the small town / community info for 2006.

The point of all this background is to ask whether the Census people would consider adding Urban Area data to the 2006 Community Profiles because without it many communities appear not to exist. The Community Profiles have always been a great, quick source of community info and I am sorry to see that has disappeared for many smaller places

Answer

The community profile was created to answer the questions from the general population concerning characteristics of the community they live in. We called it community profile mainly because there were no other names that were suitable (municipalities, township, and many other names that can be significant only in specific areas). The other reason was that the general public and students don't necessarily specify the name of the legal entity they live in. For example, I live in Orleans which at one point (few years back) was a village then split and part was amalgamated in a city called Gloucester and another part was amalgamated in another city called Cumberland. Lately, all of these were amalgamated as the City of Ottawa. For people that are still writing Orleans as their address would be lead to City of Ottawa for information on the Community Profile. If this was not done, it could be very frustrating for the general public not to be able to find information on the community they live in. Furthermore, there were so many community dissolved in 2001 that it was agreed for one census cycle that a profile would be available for dissolved entities such as Simcoe. As you are probably aware, when you pull Simcoe's profile in 2001, it would provide data but also indicate that this entity was dissolved and now part of Norfolk City. This was done for once census to give municipalities a chance to have information before and after amalgamation in order to help them in the transition to these new entities.

I understand very well your questions but I will add that from the user testing on the community profile, we were confirmed repeatedly to keep it very simple in terms of access and the level of geography for which information is available such as the legal entity you live in. It has been with the Summary tables, the most popular part of the Statistics Canada's site and I would be very reluctant to complicate the geography in fear of losing the general public.

Now, understanding that urban areas are not a legal entity and unless you fully understand the concept, this could be very misleading as part of the community profile. That being said, the other way is to use the Census Tract Profile which boundaries have remain relatively stable and still follow previous entities boundaries.

There is also this product: Catalogue No.: 95F0495XCB2001009 which is the Profile for Urban Areas, 2001 Census and which provide characteristics for urban areas in Canada, listed alphabetically by provinces which quite easy to use. I know it's not the Community Profile but being shown separately, it does not confuse users from the general public thinking that Simcoe Urban Area is the boundary of a city.