Data, or Stats, re: New Ross Nova Scotia

Question:

I have a researcher interested in getting either some data or statistics on a VERY small community in Nova Scotia called New Ross. Looking up New Ross on the Stats Can site just brings up New Ross as an “Indian Reserve” (census subdivision) with a population of zero. It’s located in the Chester Municipal District. I can find data surrounding Chester – is there a way to carve it down to New Ross? Or is it just too small?

Answer:

In part, I think New Ross is too small (though the Ross Farm is wonderful and should have it’s own census geography). But, you could look at the Dissemination Areas (New Ross seems to be at the overlap of DA 12060072, 12060074, 12060150, though primarily is 12060072, 12060074). Especially if they were to focus on DA 12060074, I didn’t see much else in terms of settlement in that one. It’s not exactly New Ross, but will probably be as close as the researcher can have without diving into the master file at one of the RDCs?

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You may have already noticed this, so apologies if so, but I just noticed some stats in the Strategic Plan for the community on their website. They are survey results but there's some limited demographic information there as well as opinion polling.

http://newross.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/A-Strategic-Development-Plan-for-New-Ross-Area-2014.pdf

Business Databases Availability at CDER or through DLI

Question:

I have a PhD student who would like to have access to the microdata for the following three databases:

Business Register (BR), (http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=1105)

Exporter Register Database, (http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&Id=24132)

Survey of Innovation and Business Strategies (SIBS) (http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=5171)

As these are all business-related sources I am inclined to think that the microdata would only be available at CDER. I checked their website and could only find is the SIBS.

Are the other two available at CDER? Also, is there any other way to obtain access to some of the data without going thorough CDER which is probably prohibitively expensive for my student? I noticed this guide to the BR (https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/statistical-programs/document/1105_D2_T1_V3) which mentions a Business Register System (BRS) and a Browsing Module. How does one get access to this?  

Answer:

CDER indeed provides access to business microdata, including the ones listed below. To provide some context on Statistics Canada’s data access standards, please visit “Access to microdata”. For more data-specific questions, I encourage your student to contact CDER directly.

To our best knowledge, BRS is not provided to general public. Business microdata are highly confidential and the access is granted on a need-to-know basis. This means only researchers with approved project by STC are able to access these data. 

To provide data-specific recommendations, I would encourage the researcher(s) to contact CDER directly. A drafted proposal would be a good start to place their research questions in context.

Social Zones

Question:

I’m helping a student who’s looking at demographic changes in a particular Saskatoon neighbourhood over time. In the 1946 census of the prairies  I found a table for Saskatoon and Regina broken down by social zones, but no further explanation as to the areas of the cities to which the numbers apply. In 1951 there is a CT reference map that is similarly numbered. Did social zones morph into CTs?

Answer:

Here is a map of the social zones for Saskatoon used in the 1946 Census:

​https://archive.org/details/1946981946FV31949engfra/page/n565


On a cursory glance, they appear to be the same as the Census Tract boundaries used in the 1951 Census, but the student will need to compare them more closely.

With thanks to the U of Toronto Map and Data Library's Historical Census page for the link to the 1946 publications digitized by the Internet Archive, and the 1951 CT map.

On page 201 of Statistics Canada - Cat. No. 92-351-UPE 1996 Census Dictionary - Final Edition, under Remark:

            Census tracts were called "Social Areas" in 1941 and 1946.

I would venture social zone or social area definitions were used in the 1941 and 1946 censuses.  These were later replaced with census tract beginning with the 1951 census.

Bootstrap Weights with the CCHS 2015-2016

Question:

A researcher is using the Bootstrap weights with the CCHS 2015-2016 and has the following question:

“I am conducting data analysis in STATA using the bootstrap weights, and one of the parameters for the function is bsn, which "specifies that # bootstrap replicate-weight variables were used to generate each bootstrap mean-weight variable specified in the bsrweight() option of svyset. The default is bsn(1)".  Do you know what the bsn number is for the CCHS 2015-2016 file?  I found documentation from CCHS 2013 which stated the bsn number was 500, but I cannot find any similar documentation for CCHS 2015-2016.”

Answer:

For the 2015-2016 CCHS file there are 1000 bootstrap replicates, this should be for your degrees of freedom (DOF) in STATA.

For the BSN, the CCHS uses the Rao-Wu-Yue bootstrap to estimate the variance. In this variant of the bootstrap, a single bootstrap weight is used to generate each bootstrap weight.

So the default value of 1 should be used. ( BSN(1) )

Incarceration Rates

Question:

Hi

I have a Masters student who is looking for Black female incarceration rates in Canada. Would this only be available through the RDCs? Do you have any suggestions of where this data may also be found? (We are also looking at the Corrections Canada research and publications).

Answer:

I’ve received the following response:

“This is not data we collect. Our Corrections data only account for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, we do not have any other ethnicity indicators.”

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A quick search found the 2014 study of Black Inmate Experience from the Office of the Correctional Investigator (2014?)   It does give CSC counts of female Black inmates (only 55) compared to over 1 thousand Black male inmates.  Perhaps a followup wth the Office of the Correctional Investigator would get or data, to calculate incarceration rates from Black women?

https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/oth-aut/oth-aut20131126-eng.aspx#toc3

Cannabis Prices

Question:

I'm working with a student looking into black market and legal cannabis prices, particularly for New Brunswick. In their own words:

The data I am looking for is cannabis prices and, quantity for both legal and black market, before and after 1 year of its legalization for recreational use. (Colorado 2013/2014/2015 data)
(New Brunswick 2017/2018/2019 data). Particularly in New Brunswick and Colorado.

I've already directed them to tables 36-10-0124-01 and 18-10-0211-01 from Stats Can. I'm just wondering if there are other places to look to find data more specific to New Brunswick?

Answer:

I’ve received the following reply from subject matter:

“The two data tables you mentioned are from Crowd-sourcing. The most recent Crowd-sourced Daily provided Canada level data only because the number of submissions is not sufficient to support provincial break-outs. 

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/191009/dq191009a-eng.htm

StatsCannabis data availability: Crowdsourced cannabis prices, third quarter 2019 (not specific to New Brunswick)

The NCS survey does include questions on price and quantity.  Given the typical sample size, however, more than one cycle of data would have to be combined to support this type of detailed analysis.  Also, preliminary investigations suggest for many product types there can be considerable missing/incomplete data meaning that estimating price elasticity (or something similar) would require a sensitivity-type analysis to understand and potentially impute records where price per gram could not be estimated. 

Finally, Health Canada’s Canadian Cannabis Survey (CCS) also collects price information and for a DLI student I believe this data source could also be an option.”

GHG by Company Size

Question:

I have a student looking for Canadian or B.C. stats or “data related to the emissions of greenhouse gases (or carbon footprint) segregated by enterprise size (small, medium, and large)”.

Emissions by industry are easily enough found, but he is particularly interested in the proportion of GHG generated by small, medium and large companies. So I guess I am looking for a breakdown by industry and then company size (not that he seems to concerned with industries).

I don’t think this breakdown exists, but I thought I’d throw my query out to the wisdom of the crowd on this list. Does anyone have a suggestion for where I might look?

Anyone?

Answer:

Your student might want to look at this interactive dashboard produced by Climate Smart Business:

British Columbia Business Energy and Emissions Profile
(BEEP) dashboard

https://public.tableau.com/profile/climatesmart#!/vizhome/BritishColumbiaBEEPdashboard-VanCity/BritishColumbiaBEEP

• ​Tab 4 on the dashboard shows GHG emissions broken down by company size (based on number of employees). You can further slice and dice by BC region and industry.

I haven't been able to determine exactly how they gather their data (aside from the following statement from the beep.eco website), so your student may want to dig into that.

Unique data
Aggregated from over a decade of engaging SMEs and derived from actual industry-specific business transportation, waste, energy and other greenhouse gas emission sources. BEEPs are about “small data” obtained directly from businesses in a new way.