First Use of Common-Law Status

Question

May I please confirm that statistics for common-law status began in 1991 (at least by Statistics Canada)?

A student is looking for stats on rate of common law couples or number thereof by province pre-1991. From what I’ve read, however, the breaking out of common-law status by StatsCan started in 1991.

Answer

I consulted the Census dictionary, and noted the following

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/ref/dict/pop018-eng.cfm

Common-law status
Part A - Short definition:
Common-law refers to two people living together as a couple but not legally married to each other.

Part B - Detailed definition:
Common-law refers to two people living together as a couple but not legally married to each other. They may be of opposite sex or of the same sex.

Census years:
2011, 2006, 2001, 1996, 1991

Remarks:

In the 1981 and 1986 censuses, people living common law could report their relationship by using one of the response categories in the question on relationship to Person 1; they were nonetheless included in the category 'Married' for purposes of data on marital status. For more information, see Marital status.

Since 2001, the response category 'Yes' includes same-sex common-law partners.

All persons under 15 years of age are considered to be not living common law.

DLI Archives Access

Question

I'm having difficulty accessing the DLI list archives provided through any of the links at http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/dli/guide/toc/3000280#a2. One of the StatCan links (under the heading "The dlilist archives") gives me a "page not found" message and other (in the paragraph under the "Asking a question on the dlilist") gives me a 404 error.

Am I looking in the wrong place for the archives or are the archives actually down?

Answer

Currently the dlilist archives are not available externally. A solution is being pursued in order to make it accessible to the public in the future. The DLI is currently in the process of updating all the links and materials on the web site.

We are pursuing making the old list (pre 2012) monarch dlilist archive available.

You can access the list archive, from 2012-present, here: https://dli-idd-listserv.statcan.gc.ca/scripts/wa.exe?A0=DLILIST

Please note, you must create a password to access the site. Your email is the one that is registered with the list. If you are unsure, please let us know and we can help retrieve it.

If you do not already have a password for the DLILIST, we recommend that you set one now. If you have an existing password, it has been copied to the new server. The password can be used for email commands as well as for access to the web interface, which hosts the list archive.

A LISTSERV password is linked to your subscribed address (Email which is subscribe to the DLILIST). If you do not know, please contact us at STATCAN.de-STCINET-dli-idd.STATCAN@canada.ca.

To set your password for this server, visit:
https://dli-idd-listserv.statcan.gc.ca/scripts/wa.exe?GETPW1=

I took the feedback from the community at the regional training sessions regarding the value of the old mhonarch files and have been working with our IT resources to make the content of the old listserv discoverable again. We have successfully extracted the contents from the old server and have successfully tested the functionality internally. We are acquiring the server for external access and seeking the necessary security approvals to make it available.

We anticipate by the end of the fiscal year (end of March) we should have the old listserv archives discoverable.

Small Area Retail Data

Question

Is there a source of older small-area retail trade figures, comparable to SARTRE, at the sub-provincial level?

Answer

“The only retail trade data at sub-provincial level we have are for Census Metropolitan Areas (CMA) of Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver only. These CMA’s unadjusted data can be found in CANSIM table 80-0020.

SARTRE data are no longer available as the system is no longer supported.”

Implementation of the term “Archived” in CANSIM

In order to comply with Statistics Canada’s Web Archiving Directive and the Treasury Board standard for managing and archiving web content, it was decided to implement the term “Archived” in the CANSIM database.

According to the directive, archived web content is information that is no longer current but is retained on the website for reference or to provide context to current content.

Data tables are archived

• when there is a concept or methodology change and a break in the time series is introduced; or
• when there are updates to indexes or classifications; or
• when the data product is significantly re-configured/re-structured.

Effective January 30, 2017, the term “Terminated” has been replaced with the term “Archived” in the titles for all terminated CANSIM tables. In addition, the archived banner has been added to each terminated table on the website.

The terminated members and series contained within active tables have retained the status “Terminated”.

A replacement of the term “Terminated” has been applied in the table titles in the SDMX and Beyond 20/20 downloadable files. The CSV files have not been affected by this change.

Footnotes which refer to the term “Terminated” will be updated manually over time to reflect the new label.

Statistics Canada is committed to achieve efficient and effective management of its key socioeconomic database while providing convenient access to relevant, reliable and timely statistical information.

Precipitation and Temperature Averages by Province

Question

I am helping a graduate student who would like to obtain the following data for all Canadian provinces:

Average total precipitations AND temperature

• At the provincial level
• On an annual AND monthly basis
• For the latest 35 years available

Although it is easy to obtain this data for specific locations (weather stations) from the Historical Climate Data page (http://climate.weather.gc.ca/) , I could not find provincial averages anywhere. I am aware that precipitation and temperature averages at the provincial level should be treated with caution because there is got to be great variability between different locations on such large geographic entities, but nonetheless I have verified that this is what the student wants.

Answer(1)

I did manage to find the following resources:

Article - Precipitation trends in Canada
Summary Table - Weather conditions in capital and major cities
Environment Canada - Temperature and Precipitation information (note: non-Statistics Canada information)

Your student might find this of interest for Alberta… the data behind the visualization is from a national climate dataset:
Answer(2)
Alberta Climate Records
http://albertaclimaterecords.com/

• This visualization web site allows users to explore temperature trends and variability from a dataset of nearly 5 million observed climate records between 1950 and 2010 for 6,834 locations across the Province of Alberta.
• “The dataset originated from the National Land and Water Information Service (NLWIS), part of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), who released the daily 10km gridded climate dataset for Canada for the period 1951-2010. Grid values were interpolated from daily climate station recordings (Environment Canada).”
• Data can be exported from individual grid cells at bottom right of each grid “page.”

One possible source of this information is the Canadian Climate Normals web site http://climate.weather.gc.ca/climate_normals/index_e.html

The site provides data for specific time periods 1961 – 1990; 1971 – 2000 and 1981 – 2010. It provides data by specific weather station name, by weather stations by province and by proximity to major cities in Canada. It does not provide data on the average for the temperature and precipitation by individual province. But the user can download CSV files of various weather station data and could work the data in order to derive the average temperature or precipitation for a province if they wanted to put the effort in to do this.

Answer(3)
“Even though we published data about temperature and precipitation in the past, we used data from Environment and Climate Change Canada in our publications. Here are a few links of interest for you client:

http://ec.gc.ca/dccha-ahccd/default.asp?lang=En&n=B1F8423A-1
http://climate.weather.gc.ca/prods_servs/cdn_climate_summary_e.html
http://climate.weather.gc.ca/historical_data/search_historic_data_e.html
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/data-research.html
http://www.ec.gc.ca/sc-cs/default.asp?lang=En&n=A3837393-1

But even if those links might be of interest to your client, they either don’t hold the information he is looking for or they are broken links. So, I think he will have to contact Environment and Climate Change Canada at this address ec.btvc-ctvb.ec@canada.ca or this address AHCCD@ec.gc.ca for daily adjusted climate data. I think he has a better to find the dataset he wants with the second email address.”

Sickness Benefits Statistics

Question

I have researchers looking to obtain information regarding sickness benefits statistics.

The research purpose is as follows:
1. Determine the legal tests used for the granting or denial of employment insurance sickness benefits.
2. Determine whether or not the legal tests make it more difficult for individuals to access sickness benefits because their medical conditions do not easily fall within the medical model of disease.

As such, they are looking for information on the following:
1. The number of applicants (total and per province) that apply for sickness benefits.
2. The number of applicants (total and per province) who receive, and who are denied, sickness benefits.
3. Variation in the success rate of applicants according to the type of medical condition they present.

The most relevant CANSIM tables that we have found are the following:
1. 276-0003: Provides data on disqualifications for employment insurance, but not sickness benefits specifically; moreover, no information is available on whether applicants were denied on the basis of invalid medical reasons (which presumably falls into the category "Other reasons").
2. 276-0004: Provides data for applications received and allowed, but only for employment insurance generally and not sickness benefits specifically.

My questions are twofold:
1) Are there sources of information regarding sickness benefits readily available and that I am missing?
2) Do the administrative information from which the above tables are derived contain information regarding sickness benefits and, if so, is it possible to look at having custom tables created?

Answer

I’ve found the following resources that may help:

• Canadian Survey on Disability, 2012: A Profile of the Labour Market Experiences of Adults with Disabilities among Canadians aged 15 years and older, 2012
• Number of employment insurance beneficiaries by type of income benefit

Those CANSIM tables are derived from the Employment Insurance Statistics Program.

This is the response we received from subject matter: “The Labour Statistics Division does not produce any custom tabulations from the Employment Insurance program. What we have on CANSIM is what is available.”

Historical Maps (Quebec)

Question

I received a question recently asking about "maps of Quebec from 1800-1850 primarily of the eastern townships (east of Montreal) ideally that corresponds with census data from 1825, 1831, 1841."

I found the following on the LAC site, but I just want to be sure that I'm not missing anything.

1825: Library and Archives Canada's (LAC's) site for the 1825 Census for Lower Canada: http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1825/Pages/about-census.aspx. There is a sub-page for Districts and Sub-districts at http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1825/Pages/districts.aspx. This includes a map, along with a list of all the districts and sub-districts. According to the metadata for this map at http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=4127087 it is from 1835.

1831: Library and Archives Canada's site for the 1831 Census for Lower Canada: http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1831/Pages/about-census.aspx. There is a sub-page for Districts and Sub-districts at http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1831/Pages/census-districts-sub-districts.aspx. They are using the same map as above.

1841: There doesn't seem to be an 1841 Census on the LAC site, but they have a 1842 Census for Canada East (http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1842-Canada-East/Pages/about-census.aspx) and West (http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1842-canada-west/Pages/about-census.aspx). Both seem to use this map: http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1842-canada-west/Pages/census-districts-sub-districts.aspx, which is from 1855. 

 The resolution of this map isn't great, but I also found it in the David Ramsey Map Collection at http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~228305~5507616:Canada-East-And-West#.

Answer

The following was found at BANQ Cartes et plans, it may be of help:

1825 http://services.banq.qc.ca/sdx/cep/document.xsp?id=0003048793

1831 http://services.banq.qc.ca/sdx/cep/document.xsp?id=0000090116
http://services.banq.qc.ca/sdx/cep/document.xsp?id=0000090117

1835 http://services.banq.qc.ca/sdx/cep/document.xsp?id=0000069582