CANSIM via E-STAT & CHASS

Question

I have a student who is seeking current data from CANSIM and wondering why CANSIM via CHASS is not as user-friendly as CANSIM via E-STAT. In particular, they are frustrated by the inability to use 'dimensions' in CHASS to define in step-wise fashion the table they want to see. E-STAT is not up-to-date enough for this user... but the challenge of using CHASS to get more current data is proving difficult. Does anyone know if CHASS is thinking about upgrading their interface?

Answers and Responses

1. I understand the frustration. However, I am also told that CHASS have been working a revised interface to the CHASS database, one which does take advantage of the dimensions structure of the new CANSIM database format. At present, part of the problem is that the weekly CANSIM feed that CHASS receives does not contain the dimension labels, and so as the interface now stands, instead of ˜Province",˜Age groups", ˜Commodities" as dimension headers, the best they can provide is ˜Dimension 1", ˜Dimension 2," etc., which is not nearly so informative. I have seen the new interface, but without substantive dimension labels, it's a lot less than ideal. I too hope that this problem can be resolved quickly. The current CHASS interface is sort of liveable with small tables with not too many series in them, but with the huge tables now in CANSIM, it is very difficult.

2. I appreciate the problems with CHASS, but this has been going on since CANSIM II emerged. Our strategy is to search on E-STAT and if there's nothing up-to-date there, go to StatCan's CANSIM and search there. Just short of paying for the data, we advise our folk to write down the v numbers and then go to CHASS.

Very few of our users need to go past step 1; virtually none on Sept. 1 of any calendar year as that's when ESTAT is cut. But for the others, we try to keep them as far away from CHASS as we can until they have at least the v#.

3. CHASS suffers from the fact that it was the very first implementation of an Internet interface (non-Web and then Web) to CANSIM, or what became later CANSIM I, a year or so before STC had one of its own. When CANSIM II emerged, we chose to retain the format (for comparability reasons), while STC moved to a different (multi-dimensional) format.

We will have some form of dimensions by May/June 2006 - the exact implementation depending very much on the format of the data feed that we get weekly from STC. We do have an internal interface right now that uses dimensions - but it is not perfect. So, bear with us for 2-3 more months.

4. CHASS is a secondary distributor of CANSIM data. This means that CHASS pays Statistics Canada for the data and redistributes it at a charge.

Your suggestion of ip recognition is not viable as DLI institutions never received free access to the CANSIM database. The only free access through Statistics Canada is through E-Stat. Otherwise, you can pay CHASS to access up-to-date series and deal with their interface until it is updated.