Economic Regions

Question

In certain Statistics Canada publications, such as 71-001, statistics are given for "economic regions" within provinces and territories. However, there is no map in this publication indicating the boundaries of the economic regions. I know I have encountered them both in print and electronic sources, but I can't recall where. Could someone please jog my memory?

Also, could someone from Statistics Canada who is reading this message please contact the appropriate Statistics Canada unit that publishes 71-001-PPB and urge that the map of the economic regions be included. Because without it, data for economic regions are incomplete if not meaningless.

Answers

1. I can tell you where the map should be available on the STC website but isn't. Specifically, it should be under the "Definitions, data sources and methods", "Geographic classifications", "Geography 2001" section:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Subjects/Standard/sgc/2001/2001-er-classmenu.htm

This page has links to maps, which should show the Economic Regions but instead links to maps of the provinces and the wider Region names (not the economic regions within a province.)

Since Economic Regions are a standard geographic concept, one would expect to find their visual representation under the "standards" section of the STC website.

Where you will find the ER map is under the geography reference maps of the Census.

http://geodepot.statcan.ca/Diss/Maps/ReferenceMaps/index_e.cfm

2. There is also an alternative: The Guide to the Labour Force Survey (71-543-GIE) tells you which CDs compose the economic region boundaries.

3. This is in reference to your request to have economic maps included in our monthly publication (71-001). A few years ago, the maps were included in the HTML version of the publication but we had to remove them because of a new rule/policy stating that whatever was available in the HTML version also had to be available in PDF. Since each economic region and census metropolitan area required a page and there are many regions, this would increase the paper count of our publication three-fold, increasing the cost of the paper publication.

We have found another way, however, of providing the maps. At the end of the publication, we will include a link to the Geographic regions on the website, including census metropolitan areas, economic regions and employment insurance regions. This will be available in the ' Data Quality' section of the 71-001 publication. The paper (PDF) version will have the actual address of the maps on the STC website. The HTML version will have a direct link.

We are working on it now and it should be available in 71-001 for the October 5th LFS release of September data. If not, it will be available for the next release in November.