Question about GAF 2001

Question:
 We have a student who is looking for the Geographic Attribution File for 2001, we’re having a difficult time locating it so I’m wondering if it exists, we can find other years.

Answer:
Subject Matter has informed us that the 2001 GAF was not disseminated. It was available through GeoSuite as blocks (renamed Dissemination Block in 2006). An Excel file (CB2001.xlsx) of the GeoSuite extraction that was made using GeoSuite 2001 is available on the Statistics Canada website: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/ref/geosuite-eng.cfm. You can download GeoSuite 2001 from the link above, do a name search for Canada, select CB (Census Block) and export the fields needed.

Geographic reference files

Question
Does anyone know if the following geographic reference products exist?

• Geographic attribute file - 2001
• Block face data file - 2001 and onwards

Answer

We believe that the block face data file was discontinued for 2001 onwards due to concerns about maintaining confidentiality.

There is more information on the block-face definition, and changes made to it in 2001, in the Illustrated Glossary:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/92-195-x/2011001/other-autre/bf-ci/def-eng.htm

I couldn’t find the file in our 2001 Geography folder either, I asked someone and I was told that GeoSuite 2001 offers the same data as the 2001 Geographic Attribute File.

It can be downloaded from the Geography page of our website:

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/ref/geosuite-eng.cfm

Census Geographic Products

Question

I am helping a researcher in gathering various census geographic products for the 1986 to 2006 period. I have two questions.

First, I have not been able to find a geographic attribute file for the 2001 census. Where is it stored?

Second, is there any correspondence file (for any census form 1986 to 2006) at the CSD level? I’m pretty sure the answer is no, but I want to confirm this. The only correspondence file are at the DA (or EA), DB and land area levels.

Answer

A Geographic attribute File wasn't produced for the 2001 Census. We asked our geography consultants about this in January 2008 and were told it wasn't available as a product. (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/data-donnees/mhonarc/dli-ild-msg/msg12686.html)