Quebec Statistics Based on Provincial Electoral Districts

Question

A student is looking for socio-demographic information from Quebec by provincial electoral districts for the time period around 1998. She is looking for data related to language, ethnic origin, education and income.

Does StatCan collect any information by this geographic designation?
Is anyone else aware of a source we may use?

Answers

1. Statistics Canada does disseminate information at the Federal Electoral District level, but only through the Census. Your user has two choices - 1996 Census or 2001 Census.

2. A longshot - did 1998 Quebec provincial electoral boundaries (QPEB) coincide with federal ones, as I think they now do in Ontario? Probably too much to hope for, but worth investigating.

Do you have a GIS map of the 1998 QPEB? If you did, you could work with EA-level maps from the 1996 Census, match the demographic data onto the map, overlay the QPEB, and combine the EAs that fall within the QPEB. The problem would be dealing with the EAs that straddle QPEB boundaries.

Someone who knows a GIS would be able to describe this better, but the upshot is that you may be able to generate what the user needs from what we already have through DLI. It won’t be perfect, but it may be better than nothing.

3. A link to a provincial election website that contains some great information.
http://www.electionsquebec.qc.ca/en/statistical_data.asp