Ontario Green Energy Act

Question:
I have a researcher who is working on the Ontario Green Energy Act (2009).

He is looking for data (as detailled as possible) about : 

-          Investments in the green/renewable economy in Ontario since 2009
-          Number of jobs in the green/renewable economy in Ontario since 2009

I expected to find a lot of information about this but it is not the case at all! I must say I am not very familiar with ontarian sources. 

I have searched Statistics Canada website and DLI. All I could find is this table, which does not show data for the provinces : https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3610041101

Would a custom table be an option? Did I missed anything else?

I have searched on Ontario's government websites (ontario.ca, Ministry of Energy, open data catalogue…) . I found a couple of reports like the Long-term Energy plan or the Auditor General report but they only give estimate or vague numbers without any details (examples: "more than 20 000 jobs", "tens of thousands of jobs").

Answer:
Response from Subject Matter:
“Unfortunately right now we don’t have any provincial level data but we are working on it. Provincial Environmental and Clean Technology Products Economic Account (ECTPEA) should be released sometime in Winter 2020 and it would have information on the number of ECTPEA jobs in Ontario, and while there would not be any pure investment figures, they could look at the time series of GDP growth for Ontario and determine whether investments undertaken by the provincial government are having an impact on output.


They could also contact environment to talk to them about the Survey of Environmental Goods and Services, the 2017 release discusses jobs within the companies surveyed, but it is a subset of what is found in ECTPEA, but it would be something available now and they have a provincial component.”

Loss of Farmland to Urbanisation

Question:
A grad student would like to know if there has been any update to the research conducted by Nancy Hofmann, Giuseppe Filoso and Mike Schofield and published in The loss of dependable agricultural land in Canada ( Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin Catalogue no. 21-006-XIE Vol. 6, No. 1 (January 2005)) https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/21-006-x/21-006-x2005001-eng.pdf

I did some research but was not able to find any update to this research or any equivalent measurement of farmland loss to urban areas.

Have I missed something?

Answer:
Subject matter returned the following comments:

“I don’t believe there has been a follow-up article or other research by the agency to follow that one up.”

Follow-up Answer:
I’ve been given the following regarding this request:

The latest release on this topic was:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/16-201-x2016000-eng.htm

General Social Survey - Time Use: time spent recycling

Question:
Good afternoon DLI,

I have an economics researcher who is interested in finding data on the amount of time that people spend on activities that benefit the environment. A more specific question is the average amount of time that Canadians spend recycling.

I thought that this data would be best found in a time use survey, such as the StatCan General Social Survey 2015 - Time Use (GSS). Searching the variables of this survey, I was able to locate the following variable: DUR19 Duration - Garbage, recycling, unpacking goods. This provides the total duration (in minutes) for taking out the garbage, recycling, compost, unpacking goods. Recycling is grouped with taking out the garbage, composting and unpacking goods which are activities that are not of interest for the researcher.

Given that the survey employs a retrospective 24-hour time diary, and that the responses were coded, is there data available from StatCan for only recycling? 

If this data is not available from StatCan, does anyone else on the list have any recommendations on other possible sources? 

Answer from subject matter:
“Unfortunately, as you noticed, it is not possible to isolate recycling only from GSS Time Use. We don’t have data on recycling only that I am aware of.”

Answer from DLI member:
While not about time spent on recycling per se, there does appear to be a lot of data sources available on this topic in general:

Searching in ODESI at the variable level for “recycl” found 107 surveys

https://search1.odesi.ca/#/search/_term_term=recycl*&type:1;&fromDate=Earliest&toDate=Present&refineColl_all:false&cora:false&icpsr:false&dlimf:false;&refineOdesi_all:true&statCaMicro:true&statCaAgg:true&pop:true&other:true;&addTerms@;&page:1&sort=date?uri=%2Fdataverse_sp%2Fdoi--10-5683_SP_IYYC4A.xml

Information on Factory Openings

Question:
I have a researcher that regularly uses the NPRI database, but the database doesn’t have information about when a factory opened, only the date for when they were registered in the database (can’t assume this is the opening date – a given factory could have only reached pollutant thresholds for registration after x number of years of operating, for example). He’s interested in when a number of factories in Ontario were opened, and was curious if there was a product or database that would provide this information. Any ideas where this info might be in one place?

Answer:
Here is the response from subject matter:

“The Business Register would have a birth date for every business location on our database however this is not data that we would normally be able to share and would require a discretionary order to proceed. It would be available at a fee to federal government divisions who are using this information for research and analysis purposes. If the client does meet these requirements, we can reached at our mailbox: BRD-Information / DRE-Information (STATCAN) statcan.brd-information-dre-information.statcan@canada.ca for further information.”

Households and the Environment Data Dictionary

Question:
I have a researcher using the 2015 Households and the Environment Survey (HES), and she’s wondering if there are any more fulsome explanations of some of the “other” responses in certain categories.

The examples she’s given are:

1)    For GDWELCOD on page 12, it states 2 options for dwelling i.e. other and apartment. There is no explanation of "other".

2)    On page 143 of data dictionary: NN_Q08BY: states other for an outdoor activity with no explanation of what other means. Is there anyone I can call to inquire?

Are there any further classifications of “other” available for these variables?

Answer:
GDWELCOD
The “other” category includes the following dwelling types:

• Single-detached
• Double
• Row or Terrace
• Duplex
• Mobile home
• “Other”

NN_Q08BY

The outdoor activities question was asked as an open-ended question and responses coded post-collection. The “other” category for the outdoor activities is a catch-all for any infrequently-reported outdoor activities that do not fall into one of the other categories of activities. Unfortunately, there isn’t any additional detail available for the activities in this category.

Research & Development and Money Spent in Energy Efficiency Programs

Question:
I have a client who is looking for the following information: 

“I was trying to find at StatsCan if they have the numbers of how much of R&D is being spent in Energy Efficiency programs and what programs, if possible, segregated by province. I found a general expenditures table (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/180828/cg-b001-eng.htm), but I wanted to find something more specific on the provinces and programs as well. Do you think this kind of information is available?”

Answer from DLI:
Good question.  I hope StatCan is gathering this from different sources.  I noticed that the federal government reports on this, but this excludes non federal government R & D investments.

In case you run into roadblocks, Natural Resources Canada’s Office of Energy Research and Development (OERD) is the Government of Canada's co-ordinator of energy research and development (R&D) activities. [https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/offices-labs/oerd/5711] Please see the reports / publications to the right.  This will exclude other funders. 

I don’t know if this next source is overly narrow I think because it includes only NRCan as a funder but it breaks down into technology areas [https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/funding/21146] and by Locations (provinces).  On the other hand, I’m not sure there are other targeted energy efficiency R & D programs. 

Answer from Subject Matter:
“No – we do not provide any detail on energy-related R&D expenditures at the provincial/territorial level.

Table 27-10-0347-01 does provide a breakdown by area of technology.  This is the lowest level of detail we provide for energy-related R&D expenditure data.”

Wind Speed Data

Question:
Any idea how to find wind speed data?  This link looked promising but it is broken.  https://ec.gc.ca/dccha-ahccd/default.asp?lang=en&n=552AFB3E-1&wbdisable=true#wb-info

Answer:
If you go to the Open Data portal and search for "wind speed" you'll find links to data that might be of use, including the "Adjusted and Homogenized Canadian Climate Data."   You'll find a link for "surface wind speed" along with data for three other climate elements.  You'll see that the page with the data looks like the same page you cite below; however, the link points to the new canada.ca domain as opposed to the older ec.gc.ca domain.  I've tested it, and the documentation and data links resolve as one would desire.

National Pollutant Release Inventory data - Clarification

Question:
I have a student using data from the National Pollutant Release Inventory (http://ec.gc.ca/inrp-npri/donnees-data/index.cfm?do=facility_history&lang=En&opt_npri_id=0000003419&opt_report_year=2016). She is wondering if data in the Volatile organic compounds (NA-M16) section includes data from other VOCs also included on the page (e.g. Xylene which is also on the page).

Answer: 
Volatile organic compounds are reportable as a group under Part 4 of the NPRI reporting requirements and it does include data from other VOCs, such as xylene. A number of individual VOCs are reportable under Part 1A and Part 5 of the NPRI reporting requirements and care should be taken to avoid double or triple counting the same VOCs reportable to multiple NPRI parts. Part 5 substances are speciated VOCs and are essentially a breakdown of the total amount of VOCs.


For the linked facility, xylene is reported under Part 1A and Part 5 and they are included in the Total VOCs reported under Part 4. Part 5 substances can be reached through the query site by clicking on any year of the Volatile Organic Compounds table. However, the query site doesn’t show the amount of part 5 substances releases from stacks above 50 meters. This data can be found on our Single Year Tabular Data or the complete MS Access database.

Landfills

Question

I am trying to help someone find the number of landfills in Canada, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec. I think I may have found numbers for NS and Ontario but not  Quebec. Incidentally, I have found that SK has more than 700 but she doesn't need that number. This seems to become quite complicated. There are large landfills and there are small landfills. Some are public and some are private. I am thinking that maybe they are in one of the DMTI layers (Enhanced point of interest?) but I haven't managed to locate the information there, yet, either. If you can help point me in the right directions, I would be very grateful.

Answer

Infostats  responded: "Information about the waste management industry is available in the CANSIM tables listed on this page of our website.

- Tables 153-0044 and 153-0045 may be of particular interest to the client.

- Table 153-0044 shows the total number of businesses in the waste management industry, by province. The same information is however not available for the public sector (153-0045).

Furthermore, information on business location counts by industry, by employment size and by province is available in CANSIM table 551-0005.

Data for the following industries can be found in this table:
Waste collection [562110]
Waste treatment and disposal [562210]
All other waste management services [562990]

The number of landfills by province is not available as a standard product on our website, but may be available through a custom request.

The client can send Infostats an e-mail with her detailed data requirements (variables, time frame, geography, etc.) as well as his/her complete contact information and Infostats will forward her request to the Advisory Services.

An agent will contact him/her back to inform him/her if the data he is seeking is available and to provide him/her with a free time and cost estimate, would any charges apply.

Finally, the client may want to contact Environment Canada as they might have more information on this subject: <www.ec.gc.ca or http://ec.gc.ca/gdd-mw/default.asp?lang=En&n=6F92E701-1>

Office of Energy Efficiency: Comprehensive Energy Use Database

The Comprehensive Energy Use Database provides an overview of sectoral energy markets in Canada and in each region of the country. These tables are intended to complement data published in the upcoming edition of the Energy Use Data Handbook, 1990 to 2008.

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/corporate/statistics/neud/dpa/comprehensive_tables/index.cfm

Survey of Drinking Water Plants

Question

A team of researchers studying water quality and “containment feed” models would like to obtain the list of drinking water plants used in the Survey of Drinking Water Plants (survey #5149). Would you be able to indicate whether this is possible – or is there someone else that we should contact?

Answer

We consulted the group responsible for the Survey of Drinking Water Plants and such a list unfortunately is not available. More specifically, they indicated that "At this time we do not have a product that provides information about the physical location of water & wastewater utilities in Canada.". I will send you the coordinates of a research officer the research team can consult if they have any follow up questions related to this request.

Survey of Environmental Protection Expenditures

Question

Hi:

A researcher was looking for data from the Survey of Environmental Protection Expenditures. The data is available through CANSIM but only for the years 2006 and 2008. The survey however has been conducted every two years from 1996 onwards. Is it possible to obtain data from the survey for the earlier reference periods?

Answer

I found a publication called “Environmental Protection Expenditures in the Business Sector”: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/bsolc/olc-cel/olc-cel?catno=16F0006XWE&lang=eng

If you select the chronological index on the left-hand side of the screen, there are tables available in the HTML version for 2004. Prior to that, there are “printed” tables available in the PDF versions.

In any case, I have passed on your question to the author division to see if pre-2006 data is available through any other means and will keep you posted.

Additional Information

An analyst in the division confirmed that publication 16F0006XWE (“Environmental Protection Expenditures in the Business Sector”) is the only output for pre-2006 reference year estimates.

However, she also noted that the survey methodology underwent a complete redesign for the 2006 reference year and does not recommend that the estimates for 2006 and 2008 be compared to the estimates from earlier survey cycles.

I hope this answers your question.

Waste Water Treatment Plants and Sludge

Question

A student working for a faculty member in Engineering was in touch with the Statistics Canada information number (1-800-263-1136). He is looking for data on the number of municipal waste water treatment plants in Canada. He is also interested in obtaining data on the amount of primary and secondary sludge produced by the plants, or, if such a level of detail is not available, for the total amount of sludge produced. He was informed by the telephone contact at Statistics Canada that they would charge him for these data, but if he went through the DLI, these data would be available for free.

I’m not sure to what resources I should be referring him – help, please!

Answer

The person who was assisting your student thought that counts of municipal waster water treatment plants might be available through Canadian Business Patterns (CBP) and therefore referred him to the DLI. The division that produces CBP confirmed that the product can provide counts of establishments and locations for a NAICS code that includes municipal waterworks (NAICS 221310 (water supply and irrigation systems) but indicated that this code would however also include private sector companies and that some of the plants may also be in NAICS 912910. They indicated that, overall, CBP may not give an accurate and exhaustive count of municipal waste water treatment plants.

A tabulation of the number of sewage treatment plants in Canada will be provided in the publication "Human Activity and the Environment", to be released in the fall of 2010. The division that produces this publication indicated that "The data source for the inventories of sewage plants was from a number of sources such as provincial administrative files, provincial web sites and reports, municipal/local government web sites and reports and calls to owner/operators."

We unfortunately do not have an active survey to collect sludge production data from municipal waste water treatment plants. The student may therefore wish to look into provincial and other federal sources (Environment Canada, perhaps) as well as relevant industry associations (if these exist) to see if they collect sludge production figures.

I hope that these suggestions are helpful.

Air Pollution Data

Question

I've got a student who's looking for 2006 air pollution data (PM10, carbon monoxide, etc.) at the health region level. Something tells me that kind of information probably isn't collected by health region. I've found a few sites that have region data available, the Ontario Air Quality Index and CASA Data (Alberta) for example, but nothing national.

Does anyone know of other possible sources?

Answer

Our contacts in our Environment Accounts and Statistics Division have provided the following suggestions in response to your question:

"Health Canada has done a lot of work linking ambient air quality data to different geographies. We have also been involved in the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) inititative for the national ambient air qualtiy indicators, but these are not specifically linked to health regions.

The approach I suggest is to use the National Air Pollution Surveillance (NAPS) data (available for download from the Environment Canada website). This can be combined via the Lat-Long coordinates for the sites with the health region geography in a geographical information systems (GIS) application. This would work for ambient air quality analysis.

If it is emissions that are the focus, then the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) is the main source of information. Since 2002, emissions of criteria air contaminants have been included in the NPRI. The inventory has emissions by facility, and the facilities are geo coded. This too could be coded to health regions with the appropriate GIS application. "

Air Pollution Data

Question

I've got a student who's looking for 2006 air pollution data (PM10, carbon monoxide, etc.) at the health region level. Something tells me that kind of information probably isn't collected by health region. I've found a few sites that have region data available, the Ontario Air Quality Index and CASA Data (Alberta) for example, but nothing national.

Does anyone know of other possible sources?

Answer

Our contacts in our Environment Accounts and Statistics Division have provided the following suggestions in response to your question:

"Health Canada has done a lot of work linking ambient air quality data to different geographies. We have also been involved in the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) inititative for the national ambient air quality indicators, but these are not specifically linked to health regions.

The approach I suggest is to use the National Air Pollution Surveillance (NAPS) data (available for download from the Environment Canada website). This can be combined via the Lat-Long coordinates for the sites with the health region geography in a geographical information systems (GIS) application. This would work for ambient air quality analysis.

If it is emissions that are the focus, then the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) is the main source of information. Since 2002, emissions of criteria air contaminants have been included in the NPRI. The inventory has emissions by facility, and the facilities are geo coded. This too could be coded to health regions with the appropriate GIS application. "

Data on driving, or car ownership and recycling or energy saving programs

Question

This request for help came while I was at ACCOLEDS.I wonder if anyone has any ideas of StatCan sources that might be helpful for the Grad Student. (The student’s paper is due imminently.)

My thesis is the following: Is there a relationship between environmentally harmful behaviours (e.g. driving) and participation in energy savings programs? In other words, I am asking the question: Do people feel guilty for driving or other polluting activities and try to do something to make up for it?

Instead of energy saving programs, this could be replaced by "recycling programs." There is some helpful information in the SDA tool which I am comfortable with. I am trying to determine if there may be any other studies by Stats Can on areas relating driving, car ownership, recycling programs, or energy saving programs (energy audits), etc.

***

With respect to my previous email, I expect the student is using the Households and the Environments Survey and I have sent him the link to the publication # 16-201-X Human Activity and the Environment: Annual Statistics. This publication lists a number of related surveys and publications.

If you can suggest any other surveys or sources that might address his research question (described in attached email), it would be helpful.

Question

You student might also look at the National Private Vehicle Use Survey. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/data-donnees/ftp/npvus-enuvp-eng.htm

According to the abstract:
The specific objectives of the survey are:
- provide national estimates of annual fuel use for personal-use vehicles (includes
passenger cars/light trucks and vans);
- provide national estimates of total distance driven;
- identify the main factors in the purchase of a vehicle;
- identify in a general fashion how households use their vehicles;
- develop driver profiles by sex, age, marital status, income, education and occupational
group;
- and develop vehicle profiles by vehicle make, model year, number of cylinders,
transmission type, and
presence or absence of air conditioning

Municipal Water Data

Question

A researcher from Brock University (in St. Catherines, Ontario) wants to know where to find data for annual expenditures and revenues by Canadian municipal water utilities and sewage treatment utilities.

Answer

I have confirmed with the author division that CANSIM Table 385-0024 is the best source available on this topic from Statistics Canada. Here is their response, followed by a link to the CANSIM table for your reference.

"Statistics Canada published annual water sale revenue and water and sewer expenditures in CANSIM table 385-0024 . . . these are all the data we have and can release. The series are annual and it goes back to 1988. The latest year for which we have data is 2007."

http://cansim2.statcan.ca/cgi-win/cnsmcgi.exe?Lang=E&RootDir=CII/&ResultTemplate=CII/CII___&Array_Pick=1&ArrayId=3850024

Updated Products - NPHS / HES

National Population Health Survey (NPHS) Cycle 6, 2004-2005 - Synthetic Files

The National Population Health Survey was designed to collect information on the health of the Canadian population and related socio-demographic information.

It is important to note that these synthethic files do not contain real data and should never be used for analytical purposes. Their only purpose is to assist users to develop and test the computer programs that are to be submitted by remote job submission.

WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/nphs/nphssynthetic.htm
FTP: /ftp/dli/nphs/Synthetic_Files-Dummy_files

**************

Households and the Environment Survey -- 2006 PUMF

The Household Environment Survey (HES) measures the environmental practices and behaviours of Canadian households that relate to the condition of our air, water and soils. The survey was also design to collect data to develop and improve three key environmental indicators: air quality, water quality and greenhouse gas emissions.

WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/hes.htm
FTP: /ftp/dli/hes/2006

Environmental and demographic data

Question

One of our PhD's is looking to find data at the lowest geographic level possible on as wide a variety of environmental indicators (air, water and soil qualities, climate, etc) and wants to marry that with a wide range of demographics (age, gender, ethnicity, income, etc) at the same level of geography. He'd like the data from the 1990's to the present.

We've looked at several sources but can't really find anything. The Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators provides data back to the 1990s but only at the national and/or provincial level.

Does anyone out there know whether these data would be available at lower levels of geography? He says he's heard of data collected at either the postal code or FSA area, but we haven't been able to locate them.

Answers

1. He might take a look at the paper by Buzelli et al. (2006) in Canadian Geographer 50(3): 376-391 for a method of estimating/interpolating such environmental data at the Census Tract scale in Vancouver.

2. Have you looked at the National Land and Water Information Service for some of the environmental data? The main data page is:
http://sis2.agr.gc.ca/cansis/

You might start with the Land Potential Database. It contains "data about soil, climate, physiography, land use, modelled constraint free (potential) crop yields, actual crop yields and soil degradation for all regions of Canada".
http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/nsdb/lpdb/intro.html

3. Count Statistics Canada out for the data at that level of geography - and even if data was collected at a low level of geography,
it does not mean that it is reliable enough to publish at that level of geography. The counts of respondents plays a very important role in what level of geography is released (census vs. survey).

4. As an added piece of information, the Health Indicators project is working with Environment Account and Statistics Division in order to come up with indicators related to the environment. The major challenges are the level of geography and the link to the standard geography. When you talk about air, water and other environmental indicators, the standard boundaries are not always relevant. This is a challenge that needs to be addressed and in maybe two or three years, it may be possible to see some relevant data being released but not yet.

5. It depends whether the client wants to use an environmental boundary or census boundary. Agriculture Canada will soon be releasing Ag data at the sub-sub-basin level and soil landscape level. But most data are not available at this level.

Also, it depends on the type of data he is looking for. Waste management data, for instance, are only available at the provincial
level due to confidentiality.

6. A few more things your patron may want to look at:

Air quality/pollutants:
http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/npri/npri_preinfo_e.cfm#dbase

Canadian compendium on common air pollutants:
http://geodiscover.cgdi.ca/gdp/search?action=
entrySummary&entryType=productCollection&entryId=14393&entryLang=en

General ecological:
http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/Ecosystem/ecosystem.html

For climate:
http://www.cccma.bc.ec.gc.ca/hccd/
http://climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/
http://www.etcentre.org/naps/naps_data_e.html

Household and the Environment Survey (HES): 3881

Question

A patron found the publication "Households and the environment 1994" (11-526) and is interested in the data which were used for this publication, which appears to be the Household(s) (and the) Environment Survey (HES) conducted in 1991 and 1994 (and again earlier this year). Any chance that they might be made available under DLI?

Answer

These files are already present on the FTP site, though it is not obvious.

The Household and Environment Survey was released as part of the Survey of Consumer Finances HIFE component:

The Microdata file for SCF 1991 (1990 Income) has data for:
1) Survey of Consumer Finances, 1991
2) Household Facilities and Equipment Survey, 1991
3) Shelter Cost Survey, 1990
4) Environment Survey, 1991

And the microdata file for SCF 1994 (1993 income) has data for:
1) Survey of Consumer Finances 1994 (1993 Income)
2) Household Facilities and Equipment Survey, 1994
3) Household Environment Survey, 1994