Question:
Instead of BC and the Territories lumped together in CansimT#s 079-0003/079-0004, could i/we have just BC and combine the Territories? To not have BC separate, as Canada’s 3rd most populous province, is highly unusual.
Answer:
A while back the Territories did not have the economy to support major dealership networks and most automobiles were purchased from either BC or Alberta. Today there are some dealerships in the territories and their values are very small and would be confidential. This would then mean we would have to suppress a larger province to hide the confidential units. We combine BC with the territories as most of the sales came from BC when there were fewer dealers in the Territories.
Other major Canadian automotive data sources outside of Statistics Canada also combine sales of vehicles from the territories in the provinces.
