CansimT#s 079-0003/079-0004

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.

FOODEX

Question

Good day everyone!

Another quick question... Is there a follow-up to the FOODEX survey? The last one available is 2001 and a student of ours is interested in more recent data - does it exist somewhere?

Answer

I asked about this in June 2008. At that time the Food Expenditure Survey was listed as an active survey. At the present time it is listed as inactive and there is no indication the survey was taken in 2009. It supplements the Survey of Household Spending.

The response given:

“When I looked into foodex last March, I was told that the author division planned on collecting data in 2009 so as to release it in 2010 or 2011. I will ask the division for an update and will follow up with more information through the dlilist. In the future, please don't hesitate to ask this type of questions through the dlilist. I am sure that they will be of interest to others!”

Additional Information

We have received the following information in response to your question below:

"Income Statistics Division has collected household spending data for 2010 using a new collection model of the Survey of Household Spending, and plans to release the main spending estimates at the end of 2011. The new model has collected greater detail for food, but the extent of the extra food detail that will be released and the exact timing of the release (simultaneous with the rest of the Survey of Household Spending data or later) is not yet finalised and will depend on the results of analysis and assessments of the data quality over this coming year."

I have asked the author division to inform us when the release plans have been finalised so that we can share this information with the DLI community.

Shopping Mall Data

Question

A researcher here at the U of S is looking for the number of shopping centres/malls in each province, preferably at the level of CSD or CMA. I know the Annual Retail Store Survey lets users extract the number of stores by individual category at the provincial level, but I haven't found a product focused on malls. I'm sure that retail/trade associations keep such data, but I thought I'd see if StatsCan does too.

Answer

I consulted the division that manages our retail store surveys and they unfortunately do not have data on the number of shopping malls by province.

I also consulted the division that manages our Business Register and they provided the following information: "Unfortunately, we are unable to provide the number of shopping centres or malls as we only maintain counts of business locations, establishments or enterprises, and we do not keep track of whether a particular retail store or service belongs to a mall. The Business Register is able to provide counts of business locations for NAICS 531120 at either the CSD or CMA level. (...) However, I would like to point out that this NAICS is not exclusive to malls or shopping centres and also includes other commercial and industrial buildings (ex. office buildings, meeting halls, reception hall, etc). Therefore, the counts would also reflect these types of businesses."

For your reference, a description of NAICS 531120, Lessors of Non-Residential Buildings (except Mini-Warehouses), is available at: http://stds.statcan.gc.ca/naics-scian/2007/cs-rc-eng.asp?criteria=531120&keyword=shopping&table=2&code_level=

Canadian Business Patterns (available through the DLI - http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/data-donnees/ftp/cbp-sic-eng.htm) contains Business Register data and could provide counts of business locations for NAICS code 531120 (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/concepts/industry-industrie-eng.htm) at the CMA level if your researcher decides that this would be of interest. Similar Business Register data at the CSD level would be available as a custom extraction (approximate cost of $760). I would be happy to refer you to an Account-Executive who can provide an official quote if your researcher wishes to look into this type of product.

I hope that this information is helpful. Should you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Small Area Retail Trade Estimates

Question

On 24 May 2007 an update was sent to explain the absence of newer versions of SARTRE:

"The 2004 and 2005 data has not been processed at this time for lack of funding. SARTRE is a cost-recovery program and the division is currently looking for users that would be willing to finance ($40,000 for two years) this project on a long-term basis. They plan to provide us with updates as developments occur in their search for long term funding for SARTRE. "

Is there any news on this product? UBC researchers are interested in finding out.

Answer

The division used to produce a series of custom tables for outside clients and DLI were contributing in the production of these tables. Unfortunately, outside clients decided they did not need these tables anymore and the cost of continuing to buy these data by DLI alone was too expensive. Since this program is fully cost-recovery, the division did try to find other potential users for this information in order to spread the costs but were not successful. This is why they had sent that annoncement in 2007. DLI was contributing $5000.00 a year for these tables. Since then, no other potential users were identified so this is why we were not able to get any other updates.

Follow-up Question

And here I had understood that the DLI subscription fees are no longer
being used to buy data products from other STC departments?!?
Presumably a misunderstanding on my part.

Follow-up Answer
This is the case now. The Distributive Trade Division stopped producing the SARTRE data in 2007 and Census and Income Division agreed that we stopped transfering money towards the data last fiscal year. Since April 2008, DLI is no longer transfering money to Divisions for data.

Follow-up Question

I guess that what you are saying is this is now essentially a custom product. If someone pays, it is produced, and if they don't, it is not.

Follow-up Answers

1) It was a custom project for which they had a few customers sharing the price to get it done but since they decided not to buy these data anymore, they dismantled the project and the resources are not there anymore. In order to be able to re-create this side project, they would have to ensure resources on a more long time term because they can't use the resource from the survey to do this. The person doing this before has been re-assigned to another project. So, it's not only a question of if one pays, they would do it. I think it would be if there is a more long term commitment, they would consider doing it.

Hope this help clarify the situation.

2) The DLI has not paid for standard products for some time now. SARTRE was not a standard product, it was basically a special product that was created when interested users were willing to pay for the entire cost of production. A number of years ago they almost cancelled production of this product because they had lost some of their paying clients so I (DLI) agreed to put up $5,000 to help. They also looked for other buyers. They continued to make this product for a while. Now it looks like all of their paying clients
have bailed out. Since this product is cost recovery and not funded under the regular division budget I guess they had no choice but to cancel production. Too bad because this was a well like and well used product.

Annual retail store data (ARSD)

Question

We have the ARSD CD-ROM for 1999/00. The description talks about annual releases. Did this ever happen?

Answer

The CD-Rom is discontinued, but the data is available in two CANSIM tables we currently have under Retail - 80-0011 and 80-0012, and they are up to date.

The division does offer more data (such as sales per square foot, total operating revenues per square foot and number of locations per square foot) but these are only at a price.

Updated Products - SARTRE / TAM

Small Area Retail Trade Estimates (SARTRE) - 2002 and 2003 data

Small area retail trade estimates (SARTRE) is a system of developing user-defined tabulations of retail sales and number of locations as low as five-digit North American Industrial Classification (NAICS), for incorporated retailers with forward sortation area (FSA) levels of geographical detail. These data are derived by integrating survey data on chain stores with tax data (for non-chain retailers).

WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/sartre/sartre04.htm
FTP: /ftp/dli/sartre

Travel Activities and Motivation Survey (TAMS) - 1999

The Travel Activities and Motivation Survey (TAMS) was conducted by Statistics Canada on behalf of the Canadian Tourism Commission and four provincial and territorial agencies responsible for tourism. The types of information collected are: areas of Canada travelled to in the previous two years and travel intentions for the next two years; reasons non-travellers do not travel; participation in recreational and entertainment activities; reasons for travelling in Canada and to Canadian provinces and territories; types of accommodation used while travelling; sources of travel planning information; and impressions of parts of Canada as travel destinations.

WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/tams.htm
FTP: /dli/tams/1999

Wholesale Prices

Question

There is a class of students doing business plans here, and one of them is looking at making energy drinks using 100% fruit juice as one of the ingredients. What he would like to find is the price that he would have to pay for fruit juice. This would be the wholesale price, not the retail price. I was able to find retail price in CANSIM Table 326-0012. But, so far, I have not been able to dig up wholesale prices. Does anyone have any ideas?

Answer
You can get futures prices of commodities (such as orange juice) via Thomson Financial's Datastream database.

I would also look at the US Dept of Agriculture's AMS page of Wholesale Terminal prices here:
http://www.ams.usda.gov/fv/mncs/terminal.htm

There are links for fruits and tropical fruits.

Also: You can find wholesale to retail prices of many types of food on Agriculture Canada's website in a database at
http://infohort.agr.gc.ca/index.cfm?action=dspWklyWhlsl&lang=eng

This database allows you to select the year, month, and day, as well as type of commodity, and location of market.

It then gives you an output, and allows you to export the data as a .csv file

Market Trends in Deli and Processed Meat Industry

Question

I have a student looking for information on market trends in the deli and processed meat industry but I am coming up relatively empty handed. Any suggestions?

Answer

There are a couple of CANSIM tables that come close. CANSIM Table 080-0010 - Retail commodity survey, quarterly (Dollars) is in E-STAT and provides quarterly figures from 1998 to 2003. The geographic coverage is only for all of Canada, though. This table includes an entry for "Deli (excluding cheese), salad bars and prepared foods for take-out."

Table 80-0013 provides annual sales instead of quarterly from 1999-2001 using the same retail commodity classification
as 80-0010.

The NAICS code for delicatessens is 44521. And while I could find three more related tables, they didn't provide stats at this level of detail provided in 80-0010. Table 80-0014, however, groups 44512, 44521, 44522, 44523, 44529 together into a Convenience and Specialty Food Stores category. This table provides monthly sales data from January 1991 to April 2004 (in E-STAT). The geographic coverage includes provinces.

CANSIM Table 080-0014 - Retail trade, sales by trade group based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), monthly (147 series).

Table 080-0015 provides the coverage of 80-0014 but quarterly rather than monthly.

Another possibility is Table 80-0011 - Annual retail store survey, financial estimates by store type and trade group based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), which covers 1999 to 2001 (in E-STAT) again using the same NAICS groupings as in 080-0014.

I didn't have any luck with Strategis.

PMB (Print Measurement Bureau) is a good source but when I searched for deli or delicatessen, I only found entries for cheese and not meats. The two 'cheese' entries were under the Groceries Section where a number of chains were identified. There are also entries for types of meat consumed.