Wednesday, November 30, 2016

LFS Microdata

Question
Is it possible to access LFS microdata pre-1976.
If so, how far back can we go? As far as 1945?

Answer
“Regrettably, the microdata files are solely available going back to 1976, inclusively; nothing before that.”

Household Pets

Question
I have some researchers looking for information on household pets both nationally and in Sarnia/Lambton. They would like to know:

- Stats related to what kind of pets people have and how many in each household
- Age related statistics of who is likely to adopt a pet
- Household expenditures on pets, pet supplies, and veterinary services broken down by age group

I was able to find information on the expenditures so far but I’m coming close to the deadline and am still searching for the rest.

Answer
I found this on the Does Statistics Canada collect this information? page that may be of some assistance:

“Pets, cats, dogs, stray animals, animal cruelty
Statistics Canada does not collect data on the number of pets (including cats and dogs) or stray animals in Canada. We do not collect data on animal cruelty or animal testing.

Statistics Canada has information on the following:
  • pet expenses as a part of household spending
  • livestock/farm animals
  • aquaculture/fish farming
  • ethical consumption
Some resources include
2011 Census of Agriculture
ARCHIVED – Spending patterns in Canada (See Tables 1, 2 and 4)
ARCHIVED – Ethical consumption

See also
For more information, see the following subjects:
Livestock and aquaculture
Food and nutrition
Natural resources

Unfortunately, you may be out of luck, as far as STC goes. On the page
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/help/collection#a6
it states "Statistics Canada does not collect data on the number of pets (including cats and dogs) or stray animals in Canada."

This might be of use to you:
Consumer Corner: Canadian Pet Market Outlook, 2014
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/sis14914

Files with pet information (not going down to the Sarnia/Lambton unless go to the RDC, and then only MAYBE):
General Social Survey, 2010 [Canada]: Cycle 24, Time-Stress and Well-Being. Main file: 4 edition
DUR6712
EPI6712

Household Internet Use Survey, 2003 (and 2002 and 2001) [Canada]

HUQ27S09

National Population Health Survey, 1994-1995 [Canada]: General file (and Health and Supplements files)

PETS
KINDPETG
What kind of pet - grouped


Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Gasoline consumption (in litres) for the Northwest Territories

Question
A user is looking for gasoline consumption in litres by province/territory, which they found in table 405-0002 http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&id=4050002. They need these statistics for 1996 to 2005 for all provinces & territories. However, we notice that the Northwest Territories series was terminated in 1998.

Do you know of any other source for gasoline consumption data for the Northwest Territories?

Answer

“For the Gasoline survey (Cansim#405-0002), it is the combined series NWT+NU that were terminated in 1998, since the creation of NU territory in 1999, data are split for NWT and NU, and are available on Cansim 405-0002.

Another source they can consult is RESD Cansim#128-0017: Energy use, final demand: RESD uses AEND for the final demand breakdown (Annual End use of Refined Petroleum Products: survey #2168: this survey is not published separately on Cansim ); most of the data on RESD are either confidential or not available. In RESD (AEND) that will be the sales by refiner/major distributor that will be reflected: AEND is called “Annual End use of RPP” but it is from the refiner/major distributor surveyed side: what they sold to the different industries which not what is actually consumed by those industries.

When comparing MRPP domestic sales of motor gasoline to Gasoline survey gross sales of gasoline : MRPP sales are lower because some motor gasoline sales might be done through secondary distributors (those distributors are not surveyed under MRPP). On the other hand MRPP diesel sales are higher than diesel sales reported in the Gasoline survey because Gasoline survey include only Taxable diesel sales to NWT customers while MRPP estimates include net domestic sales to NWT, higher diesel estimates for MRPP are caused by the inventories held (fuel purchased but not sold) by fuel distributors in the NWT.”

Friday, November 25, 2016

Proxy access to WDS and DLI Nesstar

Question
Is it possible to configure proxy access to the WDS and Nesstar, or is access by IP recognition only?

Answer
Yes you can set up a proxy access.

These would be the URLs to include in your proxy settings:

NESSTAR
http://dli-idd-nesstar.statcan.gc.ca/webview

WDS
https://dli-idd.statcan.gc.ca/wds/

SPSD/M

Question
Do we have access to SPSD/M through the DLI? If so, what's the process for gaining access?

Answer
In October, through individual communication send to DLI Contacts, the Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) team was pleased to announce that the Social Policy Simulation Database and Model (SPSD/M) is now available through the DLI. For an overview of the SPSD/M product, see here.

Membership in the DLI is subject to the DLI Licence Agreement. The SPSD/M will be governed under a separate licence agreement as an appendix to the DLI Licence Agreement. These documents were circulated in personalized messages to DLI Contact email addresses.

If you are interested in obtaining access to this product, we ask that the library director (or the authorized signatory) sign the agreement and return a copy to the DLI. We will accept a scanned signed (electronic) version of the Appendix IV licence agreement for the SPSD/M.

Access to the product will be granted under a new safe in the DLI’s electronic file transfer (EFT) safe.

Geography for Disability Data

Question

A faculty member here is interested in mapping disability information for southern Ontario (ideally, the GTA). What's the smallest level of geography they can hope for? The metadata for the Canadian Survey on Disability is not available, so I can't check there; the mater file for CCHS lists 2006 DA as a data element, but I can't tell if that applies to every other variable.

Answer

"It would have to be clarified, depending on which variables the client wants, it may be possible. If they want overall disability rate is it possible to cover the GTA, that should be fine. The issue is always the size of the sample specific to your level of geography and data attributes as well as how many cross tabulations you are doing."

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Survey of Approaches to Educational Planning 2013

Question
I just had a query about the Survey of Approaches to Educational Planning (SAEP) 2013 (http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=4442). I realize that the survey is available via the RDC, but are there any plans to make a PUMF available?

Answer
We have received the following response from subject matter:

"At present, we do not have any plan to make the survey data available via PUMF as there has been no budgetary provision made for it. We will keep you inform of any management decision regarding the provision of a SAEP PUMF."

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Financial Data

Question
I have a user who found industry Canada’s, financial performance data resource http://www.ic.gc.ca/app/sme-pme/bnchmrkngtl/rprt-flw.pub?execution=e1s1

They loved the data they found there, but it only cover recent years (2014)
They are now looking for similar historical data. More precisely, they are seeking information such as gross margins, net margins from 1997 to 2009 in respect of companies with revenues between $5M and $20M for the following NAICS codes:

Codes SCIAN :
2213
23
236
2362
2373
23621
23622
23711

Where might I go to find this?

Answer
I believe the Financial Performance Indicator files are on the EFT site: /MAD_DLI_IDD_DAM/Root/other_autres/2510_FPICB_IPFEC. 

 Also on the WDS under "Business and Financial". I haven't used these for a while. They were (are?) CDs, and I think you will have to install them on your machine.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

CDUMS PUMP Access

Question
The Canadian Alcohol and Drug Usage Monitoring Survey (CADUMS) has an metadata entry in NESSTAR but not data to download. I can not find the survey on the EFTP site either.

I have a users looking for the 2011 CADUMS pump and possibly other years as well. So is it possible to get this PUMP (and a SAS file for it)?

Answer
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I see that previously only the metadata was published. We will work on updating these files so that users can also download the data.

We have already republished 2011. We will add 2012 CADUMS to our priority list.

Upon further investigation, I see that the survey was conducted by Health Canada, which is why it would not be located on the DLI EFT site.

The original files are found on the mirror site hosted at the University of Alberta here:
/other/Canadian-Alcohol-and-Drug-Use-Monitoring-Survey-2008-2012/2012

Monday, November 21, 2016

Updated Products: EICS 2014 and 2015 V2

Please note the updated products listed below and the path to access them via the EFT site.

Employment Insurance Coverage Survey (EICS) 2014 and 2015

EICS data for 2014 and 2015 is now available on the EFT site.

The Employment Insurance Coverage Survey provides a meaningful picture of who does or does not have access to EI benefits among the jobless and those in a situation of underemployment. The survey also covers access to maternity and parental benefits.

Eft: /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/4428_EICS_ECAE/2014
Eft: /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/4428_EICS_ECAE/2015

Saturday, November 19, 2016

RDC analyst access to documentation

Question
The RDC analyst here asked me for the documentation for the NLSCY synthetic files from cycles 5-8. She has a researcher who would like the documentation to prepare code outside the RDC and take it in. I was surprised that an RDC analyst would be asking for this on behalf of a researcher rather than directing the researcher to me and I suggested that if the researcher is affiliated, that he/she should get in touch with me. The response I got back made it seem like the analyst might be preparing the code for the researcher. In re-reading her two e-mails, perhaps she was just using the first person to refer to her own experience before she was an RDC analyst as an example, but assuming she does want to get the documentation for herself I wanted to double check.

As you might imagine I'm not concerned about the level of service she provides to her researchers in general, but I am wondering  whether there have been any changes in how we deliver DLI services on a campus that also has an RDC. In the olden days there seemed to be a pretty tall wall between DLI and RDC data (I'm not talking about documentation here - just data files). Is it still okay to give the documentation to the analyst or because these are synthetic files do I have to confirm that the researcher is affiliated even for the codebooks, etc?

It's very likely that the researcher will be affiliated and that the analyst is simply being really nice in providing assistance to the researcher, but it's also possible that he or she might be from outside the institution because the RDC does allow non-institution researchers. As such, I'm reluctant simply to point to SDA without having determined a little more about the situation. If she ends up wanting the data as well I can remind her of the DLI conditions of use with the synthetic data (authorized user/authorized use), although I expect she's aware of this.

There are about a thousand other nuances to this, but my main question is whether I am allowed to grab the documentation for the analyst just like I might for any pumf and any other researcher (not whether there might be a better way, although I'm also interested in this).

I feel like the way I've posed my questions/comments makes it seem like I'm being territorial, but this is not the case. I really just don't know what the protocol is in this case. I kind of have it in my head that the RDC analysts have everything at their fingertips and therefore it comes as a surprise when I find out that this mightn't be the case.


Answer
In regards to “whether I am allowed to grab the documentation for the analyst just like I might for any PUMF…” it’s suggested that you ask the analyst to have the researcher contact you directly. That way you can determine if the researcher is eligible for the services of the DLI. The synthetic files are not available in the RDC so the researcher should seek them out on her own, or through your library as a DLI member. She can produce code and bring it in the RDC provided her research proposal has been approved.

To further add, a DLI librarian should not be asked by the analyst for RDC materials. An analyst is to direct the researcher to the DLI if DLI services are required for their analysis. Also, DLI material is not placed on RDC servers, therefore, there should be no need to even ask DLI to grab documentation.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

EICS 2015

Employment Insurance Coverage Survey (EICS) 2015

EICS data for 2015 is now available on the EFT site.

The Employment Insurance Coverage Survey provides a meaningful picture of who does or does not have access to EI benefits among the jobless and those in a situation of underemployment. The survey also covers access to maternity and parental benefits.

Eft: /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/4428_EICS_ECAE/2015

Monday, November 14, 2016

Machinery and equipment price indexes

Question
An Economics researcher is looking for the background sampling framework and the underlying detailed data for the Machinery and equipment price indexes, see IMDB page: http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&lang=en&db=imdb&adm=8&dis=2&SDDS=2312#a2

The commodity (commodity 30) in question is Non-electric furnaces and heating equipment.

His first question is whether the price indexes for this commodity include the residential sector at all (in full or in part)?

If residential furnace prices are covered, then his second question is availability of the most detailed data, that is:

1) prices over time for natural gas furnaces by
2) energy efficiency rating (AFUE) of the furnace, and this may be dreaming in technicolour, but is not necessary
3) why the customer replaced their furnace?

Answer

“No, the residential sector is not part of MEPI. The index provides quarterly estimates of price changes for machinery and equipment purchased by industries in Canada.”


Thursday, November 10, 2016

Prison Farms

Question
Are there any statistics available on what/who makes up the prison farm population in Canada, both recent and historically? I have found some publications on the Correctional Services website but not statistics.

Followup Response
I had an extremely similar question two years ago!  I'll dig around for what I found, and share with you that info.

Depending on the province -and the actual stats you are after, - the Annual Reports from each ministry or department of Corrections or Prisons or Attornies General, can give you some neat info, too!

Answer
Interesting question! I admit I had to look up what a prison farm was. After some searching, I came across the following reference on the statcan website:

Statistics On Penal Institutions, Pardons, and Parole (Series Z173-226)
General note
There have been several distinct types of penal and detentive institutions in Canada: penitentiaries; provincial prisons; other provincial institutions such as reformatories, industrial farms, and training schools for juveniles; and municipal jails. With the evolution of penal and correctional philosophy, nearly all reformatories and industrial farms and training schools have gradually been phased out in recent years. Since municipal jails serve mainly as temporary detention centres rather than as places where convicted persons serve their sentences, the principal penal institutions are penitentiaries and prisons.

Under the BNA Act, the federal Government of Canada has exclusive responsibility for establishing, maintaining, and managing penitentiaries. Penitentiaries are the penal institutions where convicted persons sentenced to two years' imprisonment or more serve their terms. Provincial prisons are under the jurisdiction of their provincial governments; persons sentenced to less than two years' imprisonment serve their terms in these institutions. (Since 1972, however, there have been federal-provincial transfer agreements under which persons with sentences of less than two years may in certain circumstances serve their term in a penitentiary and some persons with sentences of two years or more may serve their terms in provincial prisons.)

Statistics on provincial prisons (or jails) and other penal institutions have been published since 1918 by Statistics Canada in the annual reports, Statistics of Criminal and Other Offences until 1955, and in Correctional Statistics thereafter. A program for uniform reporting of statistical data specifically on training schools was inaugurated in 1963, with 1964 being the first complete year for which data were available. Publication of statistics continued until 1974; data were accumulated for several years following without being published, and the program was ultimately terminated.

That being said, it would seem that perhaps the ministries collect this information.

LFS through the DLI - Economic Regions

Question
I note the geography for the LFS through DLI[Nesstar] is limited to province and the 3 largest CMAs, however CANSIM includes a table [282-0124] with geography for the ERs.

I thought this would have been addressed before so I did look at the DLI archive and training repository, but find nothing addressing the fact that the LFS in Nesstar does not includes a breakdown by ER.

Answer
That is correct, in the Public Use Microdata File (PUMF) (the file on nesstar), the geographic variables are limited to the province and the 3 largest CMAs. Included in the PUMF you also have a wealth of other variables to choose from. Microdata enables a user more control over the variables offered for analysis. Whereas, the tables in CANSIM have limited variables for which a user can manipulate.

The variables in an aggregate data file (table on CANSIM) do not lend themselves to generating cross-tabulations of individuals since the initial unit of observation has been replaced by time (eg: time series data), geography (eg: census / geography) or a social construct (eg: cause of death – HID).

Modifications are performed to a PUMFs to anonymise the file, including combining variables, limiting categories, removing variables (example with Geography), etc, that will reduce the risk of users identifying a respondent.

More information can be found in section 4. Data in the DLI Survival Guide.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

CTADS 2015

Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey (CTADS) 2015

CTADS data for 2015 are now available on the EFT site.

As of 2015, new content, covering alcohol use as well as prescription and non-prescription drug use, was added to the Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey. Therefore, the survey is now entitled Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey (CTADS).

The overall objective of CTADS is to provide regular and reliable data on tobacco, alcohol and drug use and related issues, with the primary focus on 15- to 24-year-olds.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 4440.

The Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey (CTADS) is a biennial general population survey of tobacco, alcohol and drug use among Canadians aged 15 years and older. It replaces the Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey (CTUMS), which was conducted from 1999 to 2012, and the Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey (CADUMS), which was conducted from 2008 to 2012. The CTADS merged the core tobacco content from CTUMS and the core drug and alcohol content from CADUMS, resulting in more efficient data collection and providing a tool to monitor and compare the use of multiple products and substances with addictive properties. The CTADS is conducted by Statistics Canada on behalf of Health Canada.

Understanding Canadian trends in tobacco, alcohol and drug use is vital to the effective development, implementation and evaluation of national and provincial health strategies, policies and programs.

Eft: /MAD_PUMF_FMDG_DAM/Root/4440_CTADS_ECTAD/2015

Monday, November 7, 2016

Concussion statistics


Question
I have a student looking for the number of sports-related concussions sustained by 18-24 year olds (university-aged) in Canada. We’re finding concussion numbers (not specifically sports-related) or sports-related injuries (not specifically concussions), and we cannot find the age group she wants. I think the Canadian Community Health Survey would have this data, but would something this specific be a custom tab?

I did find some CIHI data that might be close enough, but I wanted to check with others in case I’m missing something.

Answer
From subject-matter:
Since this is DLI, I assume the student is using the PUMF. For 18-24, they could use DHHGAGE=3 or 4 (18-19 and 20-24). However, for injuries, the type of injury that represents concussions has been grouped with another category due to potential disclosure risks on certain categories. If they look at INJG05=8,this will represent concussion, brain injury or other internal injury. And for sports, they’d have to look at INJG092=1 (injured while doing sports or exercise).

If they don’t want internal injuries grouped in, then it would have to be a custom tab. In that case, you’d use INJ_05=8 (concussion or brain injury) and INJ_09=1 (injured while doing sports or exercise).

One important thing to explain to the client is that the INJ variables represents the most serious injury reported by the respondent, not all injuries in Canada. Each of those people who reported a different injury could have also had a concussion, but since it was not the most serious of the year, we don’t have data for it. So the INJ content gives you a rough idea of the injury rate.

From production:
If the client wishes to have a custom tabulation, we recommend using a two years estimate (2013-2014) as the sample size for a single year is quite small and reduces the reliability of the data.

Cost estimate : $189.00 plus applicable taxes
Delivery time: 10-15 business days.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Notification of changes to the Harmonized Commodity Descriptions and Coding System (HS)

We’ve recently made changes to descriptions of import and export commodities in the Harmonized Commodity Descriptions and Coding System (HS). The purpose of these changes is to mirror international standards and clarify commodity descriptions. No changes to the HS codes themselves have been made at this time.

Furthermore, we would also like to advise our clients of the upcoming 2017 World Customs Organization (WCO) 6-digit Harmonized System updates. Updates up to and including the 6-digit HS are made every 5 years by the WCO with the next scheduled update set for January 2017. The structure of the classification, the codes, and the descriptions will be made in order to reflect international standards and requirements. It should also be noted that Statistics Canada has reduced the number of low value import and export HS codes. These changes will be reflected in the March 2017 release of Canada’s merchandise trade data.

Upon request, starting in January 2017, Statistics Canada will make available a concordance between the 2012 6-digit HS and the 2017 6-digit HS classification codes, as well as concordances between the 2016 and 2017 detailed levels on Export (HS8) and Import (HS10).

LFS - October 2016

Labour Force Survey (LFS) – October 2016

LFS data for October 2016 are now available on the EFT site.

This public use microdata file contains non-aggregated data for a wide variety of variables collected from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS collects monthly information on the labour market activities of Canada's working age population. This product is for users who prefer to do their own analysis by focusing on specific subgroups in the population or by cross-classifying variables that are not in our catalogued products
The Labour Force Survey estimates are based on a sample, and are therefore subject to sampling variability. Estimates for smaller geographic areas, industries, occupations or cross tabulations will have more variability. For an explanation of sampling variability of estimates, and how to use standard errors to assess this variability, consult the Data Quality section in the Guide to the Labour Force Survey.

Eft: /MAD_PUMF_FMDG_DAM/Root/3107_LFS_EPA/1976-2016/data/micro2016-10.zip

We are pleased to inform you that the following are now available on the Statistics Canada Nesstar WebView site (http://dli-idd-nesstar.statcan.gc.ca/webview).

PUMFs
Labour Force Survey (LFS), 2016 – October

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Annual Retail Trade Survey & Retail Store Survey Firm-Level Data

Question
I’m working with a researcher interested in the Annual Retail Trade Survey (2447) –formerly the Annual Retail Store Survey (2446) & the Annual Survey of Manufactures and Logging (ASML) –formerly the Annual Survey of Manufacturing and Logging Industries (ASML) formerly the Annual Survey of Manufactures.

Would firm level data or microdata be available by custom tab?


Answer
Firm level data would not be available as a custom tab, as:

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any data that would divulge information obtained under the Statistics Act that relates to any identifiable person, business or organization.

Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. As such, you will find tables that are available for the ARSS here:
Summary tables
Publications
Analysts and researchers
CANSIM

The list of chain is the only detailed information available (because we have waivers with the companies asking for their permission to divulge this information), no other data at firm level is available.

Here is what she is referring to
2014 Annual Retail Trade Survey – Partial List of Retail Chain Stores
http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb-bmdi/document/2447_D5_T9_V12-eng.htm

International Merchandise Trade Data by Commodity Classification, 2009

Question
There is a researcher here on campus using the "International Merchandise Trade Data by Commodity Classification, 2009". We were noticed for some rows zeroes are listed for quantity (position 33-45 in the row) and value (CDN$) (position 46-58) is not zero. It is strange for nothing to have a value. I have looked through the documentation here:http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cimt-cicm/page-page?lang=eng&mode=concepts. But, it is not clear to me.

Answer

“CIMT is limited to HS6 level data and as such there are likely to be HS8 or HS10-level codes nested under any given HS6 code. The nested HS8 or HS10 codes may have different units of measure for each commodity they represent. Without a common unit of measure for all nested codes under a given HS6 code any quantity amounts cannot be represented at the HS6 level.”