Retail Commodity Survey: CVs for Total Sales March 2023

Retail Commodity Survey: CVs for Total Sales March 2023
Table summary
This table displays the results of Retail Commodity Survey: CVs for Total Sales (March 2023). The information is grouped by NAPCS-CANADA (appearing as row headers), and Month (appearing as column headers).
NAPCS-CANADA Month
202301 202302 202303
Total commodities, retail trade commissions and miscellaneous services 0.55 0.63 0.66
Retail Services (except commissions) [561] 0.55 0.62 0.64
Food and beverages at retail [56111] 0.41 0.33 0.34
Cannabis products, at retail [56113] 0.00 0.00 0.00
Clothing at retail [56121] 1.23 1.49 1.42
Jewellery and watches, luggage and briefcases, at retail [56123] 4.58 3.87 4.95
Footwear at retail [56124] 1.63 1.15 1.30
Home furniture, furnishings, housewares, appliances and electronics, at retail [56131] 1.10 1.16 1.14
Sporting and leisure products (except publications, audio and video recordings, and game software), at retail [56141] 2.46 2.32 2.28
Publications at retail [56142] 5.63 5.62 6,13
Audio and video recordings, and game software, at retail [56143] 6.99 5.33 5.16
Motor vehicles at retail [56151] 1.75 2.34 2.25
Recreational vehicles at retail [56152] 5.94 5.28 4.16
Motor vehicle parts, accessories and supplies, at retail [56153] 1.78 1.66 1.78
Automotive and household fuels, at retail [56161] 1.70 1.38 1.40
Home health products at retail [56171] 2.44 2.39 2.53
Infant care, personal and beauty products, at retail [56172] 2.88 2.80 3.01
Hardware, tools, renovation and lawn and garden products, at retail [56181] 2.23 1.71 1.77
Miscellaneous products at retail [56191] 3.28 2.41 2.31
Retail trade commissions [562] 2.25 2.28 2.51

2023 submissions

Linking the 2011 National Household Survey and the 2016 long-form Census data to Nunavut incident Tuberculosis (TB) data (2010 to present) (001-2023)

Linking the 2011 National Household Survey and the 2016 long-form Census data to Nunavut incident Tuberculosis (TB) data (2010 to present) (001-2023)

Purpose: The goal of the project is to develop methodology to predict residential households or groups of households at high risk of developing active TB disease. This will concentrate efforts on community-wide screening using an Inuit-specific prediction score that goes beyond traditional biological risk factors that often do not apply to Inuit living in this remote region of Canada in a reproducible, standardized, automated approach that local health care practitioners can use.

Output: The linked datasets (2011 NHS-TB and 2016 long-form Census-TB) will be used for analysis by the Taima TB research group at UOttawa. Members of the team will be made deemed employees for this purpose. The datasets will contain geocoordinates for houses in Nunavut, which are direct identifiers. To minimize the risk of disclosure and breach of confidentiality, the Centre of Indigenous Statistics and Partnerships (CISP) will be custodians for the datasets, the data will only be accessed at a StatCan office, and any dissemination will be subject to disclosure control guidelines developed by StatCan methodologists. The source datasets will be anonymized and will respect variable restrictions in effect for them.

Only aggregate data that conforms to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada. The household level data will be used in regression models and outputs such as aggregate distribution of the derivation and validation cohorts, regression coefficients, Receiver Operating Characteristics curves, list of variables that will make up the risk scores, a histogram of risk score and predicted risk of TB will be released in publications and presentations.

Firm technology adoption, its determinants, and impacts (003-2023)

Firm technology adoption, its determinants, and impacts (003-2023)

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to better understand what causes firms to adopt new technology and the consequences it has on firms and workers. To do so, a microdata linkage will be established between firm-level surveys on technology adoption (Survey of Business Innovation and Strategy, Survey of Advanced Technology, and Survey of Digital Technology and Internet Use) and employer-employee database (Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database) as well as other databases (Census of Population and data on union representation votes for Canadian firms).

This project can help better inform Canadians on technology adoption and its impacts on the economy and labour market. In addition, it will provide relevant evidence and information to the academic community and policy-makers, which helps support the development of policies and programs to promote equal technology adoption and diffusion among businesses so as to increase Canada’s competitiveness and the benefit of people living in Canada.

Output: The output of this project will include several analytical reports that address the following questions:

  1. What are the main factors that drive a firm’s decision to adopt technology?
  2. How different are the patterns of technology adoption by businesses owned by subpopulation groups such as women and immigrants? Do they experience additional hurdles for technology adoption?
  3. What is the relationship between unionization and technology adoption? Do unions act as facilitator or inhibitor of technology adoption?
  4. What are the impacts of technology adoption on firm performance?
  5. What are the outcomes of technology adoption on workers such as job displacement, changes in wages and inequality etc.?

The analytical file, without identifiers, will be made available via Statistics Canada Secure Access Points (such as Research Data Centres), and access will be granted to Statistics Canada deemed employees following the standard approval process.bation standard.

Linking the Level of Supervision and Official Language Variables to the ESDC Employee Wellness Survey (ESDC EWS) (004-2023)

Linking the Level of Supervision and Official Language Variables to the ESDC Employee Wellness Survey (ESDC EWS) (004-2023)

Purpose: The overall objective of the ESDC Employee Wellness Survey is to assess conditions in the work environment at ESDC and inform strategies that meet the needs of employees and optimize their well-being.

The purpose of the linkage is to add two variables to the ESDC EWS share file, which would be used to subset the data by Level of supervision and by official language. This would allow for analysis of principal survey results that would provide for a more in-depth analysis of these subgroups of respondents’ potentially different experiences to be understood and addressed in the form of improved people management practices.

Output: The planned outputs are a ESDC EWS Share file, and non-confidential aggregate statistics in the form of Excel tables and a Power BI dashboard, for Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). Statistics Canada will enter into a data sharing agreement with ESDC who in signing the agreement, agrees to keep the information shared confidential, and only use it for statistical and research purposes. Respondents to the ESDC EWS were informed of the sharing with ESDC at the time of collection, and only those respondents that agreed to share their information will be included in the ESDC EWS Share file. No direct identifiers, including personal identifiers, will be included on the ESDC EWS Share file. The ESDC EWS Master file placed in the Research Data Centres (RDCs) will not include the two linked variables. Only non-confidential aggregate statistics will be released outside of Statistics Canada.

Surrey Opioid Data Collection and Community Response Project: Linking Surrey Opioids data with Census, income, health and immigration data to generate privacy-enhancing synthetic data (005-2023)

Surrey Opioid Data Collection and Community Response Project: Linking Surrey Opioids data with Census, income, health and immigration data to generate privacy-enhancing synthetic data (005-2023)

Purpose: Building on the purpose of the 008-2018 linkage project, which was to build the capacity for identifying the primary risk factors and the sub-populations at greatest risk of an overdose. To create a better understanding of the characteristics of those individuals at the heart of the opioid crisis-particularly for those individuals using and dying in their residence. To aid in the effort to understand the roots of the illicit drug epidemic and the individuals most at risk of overdose. In addition to the policy perspective, if successful, synthetically generated opioid data can be used by researchers, health-care developers and clinical scientists to develop innovative health-care solutions and use it for teaching and training purposes.

This new project will utilize the same referenced cohort (008-2018 linkage project) to produce a generative Machine-Learning model for generation of privacy-enhancing synthetic datasets. Several Machine Learning models will be assessed to identify one which optimally balances privacy risks disclosures with data utility. Development and assessments of models and synthetic datasets will be a collaborative work between Statistics Canada and UQAM University researchers.

In addition, should the proof-of-concept be successful in balancing privacy and confidentiality risks against the data utility, it will allow useable privacy-enhancing granular-level synthetic data and study outcomes to a wider group of researchers and policymakers could encourage innovation through active collaboration and facilitate a broader and faster advancement of solutions to the opioid crisis. Synthetic patient data that preserves the relationship among study variables but contains no records that represents or identifies an actual individual in the cohort would be a viable solution to this problem.

Output: A comprehensive technical report summarizing the methodology, assessment of the generative algorithms, key findings, lessons learned and recommendations for next steps (if any). High-level findings may be reported in the form of presentations to various Public Safety Canada partners. Deemed employees of Statistics Canada will only have access to the data with an anonymized linkage ID, but NOT the direct identifiers, and use only authorised devices from Statistics Canada secure access points during this project.

A well-documented code repository for the project under Statistics Canada’s existing and future policies. As part of Open Science initiative, free access to the open-source tool and libraires will be rendered to public. Code will not contain sensitive information and will undergo appropriate assessments before release.

A pre-trained generative model that can produce a high-quality data in a differentially private setting. Such an approach in production could guide the development of targeted approaches for prevention, treatment, and identification of possible intervention points for the high-risk population in opioid-toxicity studies. This model will be capable of generating novel synthetic data instances not found in the original dataset which maintains the privacy of the members of the original dataset, while maintaining key properties that respect the data distribution.

No confidential Statistics Canada micro-data will be made publicly available during or after the completion of the research collaboration under this agreement. This term also extends to Machine Learning (pre-trained) models and prototypes that may in turn divulge confidential information.

Linkage of the Census of Agriculture across census years, 1986 to 2011 (006-2023)

Linkage of the Census of Agriculture across census years, 1986 to 2011 (006-2023)

Purpose: Relatively little analysis has been undertaken to measure farm-level productivity in Canada. This work will examine the degree that productivity growth is driven by improvements within continuing farms compared to how much results from the reallocation of resources like land between farms. This serves to inform policy aimed at improving the productivity of the agriculture sector.

Output: Only non-confidential aggregate statistical outputs and analyses that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada. The information will be presented in the form of tables of regression results and summary statistics related to the project’s goal.

Analytical datasets will be placed in the Research Data Centres (RDCs) and access will be granted following the standard RDC approval process. The source datasets will be anonymized and will respect variable restrictions in effect for the source datasets. Access to the analytical file is restricted to researchers who have become deemed employees of Statistics Canada.

Linkage of the Survey of Before and After School Care in Canada, 2022 to the 2020 T1 Family File, 2021-2022 Canadian Child Benefit File, the Longitudinal Immigration Database. (007-2023)

Linkage of the Survey of Before and After School Care in Canada, 2022 to the 2020 T1 Family File, 2021-2022 Canadian Child Benefit File, the Longitudinal Immigration Database. (007-2023)

Purpose: The purpose of this linkage is to respond to the data needs of the Government of Canada’s Multilateral Framework for Early Learning and Child Care. This framework identifies key priorities for child care, including child care that is inclusive and flexible.

This microdata linkage will augment the 2022 Survey of Before and After School Care in Canada with information on income and employment characteristics, family structure and immigrant status in order to explore more fully characteristics associated with the use of child care in Canada.

Output: A linked microdata file will be available within Statistics Canada and will be placed in the Research Data Centres (RDCs) where access will be granted following the standard RDC approval process. Aggregate findings will be reported in research papers, internal and external reporting documents, presentations at workshops and conferences, as well as external publications (e.g., academic manuscripts).

Assessing socio-demographic and health characteristics of people who received Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). (009-2023)

Assessing socio-demographic and health characteristics of people who received Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). (009-2023)

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to create a linked dataset that will allow the study of socio-demographic and health characteristics of people who have accessed MAID. In order to achieve this purpose, decedent information from Health Canada will be linked to the T1FF to obtain income and employment data, the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD) to obtain hospital discharge records, and the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) and the Ontario Mental Health Reporting System (OMHRS) to obtain information on use of health care services. The MAID data will also be linked to the Canadian Vital Statistics Death Database (CVSD) to obtain coded cause of death data, as well as the Canadian Cancer Registry to obtain information cancer diagnosis and treatment. Linking the MAID data to other data sources at Statistics Canada will allow the identification of possible barriers and inequalities in accessing MAID supports in Canada.

Output and Dissemination Plan: Only non-confidential aggregate statistics and analyses that will not result in the identification of an individual person, business or organization will be released outside of Statistics Canada. Exact outputs and products are still to be determined but will be based on needs to address key research questions. It is anticipated that high-level findings will be shared with Health Canada in the form of reports, presentations, data tables, and data visualization dashboards. It is possible that high-level findings may also be published for public use through reports, web tables, data dashboards or other means. The analytical file, without identifiers, will be made available via Statistics Canada Secure Access Points (such as Research Data Centres), and access will only be granted to Statistics Canada deemed employees following the standard approval process.

Comparing the innovation performance of multinational and non-multinational enterprises (010-2023)

Comparing the innovation performance of multinational and non-multinational enterprises (010-2023)

Purpose: The goal of this project is to measure the contribution of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and non-multinational enterprises (non-MNEs) to innovation, advanced technology use and the high-tech sector in Canada. The analysis can provide insights into factors that contribute to innovation success and inform policies that promote innovation and competitiveness in all types of firms.

In the initial usage of this linkage Statistics Canada's Investment, Science and Technology Division will analyze the differences between MNE and non-MNEs across a variety of indicators. This will allow statistics Canada to analyse to what extent MNEs contribute to the structural changes in the economy. Particularly, as it pertains to the adoption and implementation of innovation, and the usage of advanced technology.

Output: Only non-confidential aggregate statistical outputs and analysis that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside Statistics Canada. These outputs will include aggregate statistical tabulations showing the difference in MNEs and non-MNEs in terms of innovation rate, advanced technology use, and patents for high-tech and non-high-tech sectors.

Estimating participation in the tax and benefit system (011-2023)

Estimating participation in the tax and benefit system (011-2023)

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to investigate the participation of specific groups in the Canadian tax and benefit system, and these groups’ access to this system. More specifically, it will attempt to evaluate how many low-income earners may be missing out on the Canada workers benefit by not filing a tax return. It will also examine the filing rates for social assistance recipients to estimate whether this behaviour precludes this vulnerable population from receiving certain benefits.

The information will help improve targeted outreach efforts to increase uptake of specific benefits and encourage Canadians to file a tax return.

Outputs: Non-confidential aggregate tables will be produced to summarize filing rates for individuals with low earnings and social assistance recipients. The initial products will be two analytical papers that will compare limited sociodemographic characteristics, including age, gender, presence of children and geography. Only non-confidential aggregated data estimates that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside Statistics Canada.

Linkage of the Canadian COVID-19 Antibody and Health Survey (CCAHS) to census and immigration data (012-2023)

Linkage of the Canadian COVID-19 Antibody and Health Survey (CCAHS) to census and immigration data (012-2023)

Purpose: Expansion of the Canadian COVID-19 Antibody and Health Survey (CCAHS) dataset through data linkage will allow for complex investigations, descriptive and inferential, on the demographic, socioeconomic and health-related variables that contributed to the experience of Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic. The collection of biospecimens as part of CCAHS, both Dried Blood Spot (DBS) and Saliva (PCR) samples, will provide information about the virus, including how the presence of antibodies from infection and vaccination varied across time in the Canadian population. The linkage aims to extend the level of disaggregation of the survey findings across Canadian subpopulations based on immigration characteristics, known and spoken languages, and income levels. This is particularly important as the CCAHS cycle 2 collected information on chronic disease prevalence and the longer-term impacts of SARS CoV-2 infections, including which Canadians might be at a greater risk of experiencing the post-COVID-19 condition. The findings may lead to the identification of populations at risk during and following a pandemic, as well as provide evidence to enact effective policies and mitigation strategies that support greater health equity for Canadians.

Output: Only non-confidential statistical aggregates will be released outside of Statistics Canada.

The linkage will produce separate analytical files.

  1. Research file: an analytical file without identifiers will be accessible for research purposes via Statistics Canada’s secure access points following the standard approval process for access, including becoming Statistics Canada deemed employees.
  2. Linked analytical share files, without identifiers, will be accessed via Statistics Canada secure access points by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and by the Covid-19 Immunity Taskforce (CIT), who have signed data sharing agreements under the Statistics Act and where respondents have consented to share their information. Where applicable a disclosure order under the Statistics Act will be in place to disclose tax information to PHAC where respondents have consented. Access will require researchers from PHAC and CIT to become Statistics Canada deemed employees.

Exploring the socioeconomic factors associated with contact with police, courts, and correctional services (013-2023)

Exploring the socioeconomic factors associated with contact with police, courts, and correctional services (013-2023)

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to explore the extent and nature of new criminal justice system contacts among groups of people who have had a previous contact with the criminal justice system, as well as the demographic and socio-economic factors associated with criminal justice system contacts (for example, employment, education, household composition, health, and use of social services). Previous research has shown that a small group of people is responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime, and that this group is more likely to be economically marginalized, have higher mortality rates, and be hospitalized more frequently. Therefore, understanding the characteristics associated with criminal justice system contacts is important for criminal justice policy, programs, and initiatives aimed at preventing and reducing crime.

Output: Linked analytical files and anonymized linking keys will be used by Statistics Canada to produce non-confidential aggregate statistical tables and analytical reports, such as reports for Statistics Canada’s flagship justice and public safety publication, Juristat. The analytical files and linking keys, without identifiers, will be made available via Statistics Canada Secure Access Points (such as RDCs). The collection of these analytical files and linking keys will be called the Criminal Justice Relational Database and access will only be granted to Statistics Canada deemed employees following the standard approval process.

Gender-based analysis plus of federal tax expenditures using microdata linkage between Census 2021 and tax data (014-2023)

Gender-based analysis plus of federal tax expenditures using microdata linkage between Census 2021 and tax data (014-2023)

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to conduct a Gender-based plus impact analysis of federal personal income tax expenditures for racialized groups, immigrants and Indigenous peoples using information resulting from a linkage between census and tax microdata. This project aims to provide a better understanding of the income characteristics among specific identity groups.

As part of this cost-recovery project, Statistics Canada will be linking select variables from the 2021 Census to income and tax deduction data from the T1 Family File and the T1 Personal Master File. Immigration, ethnicity and gender variables from the Census will be merged with income and claims information to estimate the share of Canadians with immigration and ethnocultural characteristics who are claiming and benefiting from various available federal tax expenditures among Canadians.

Output: The final linked analytical files without personal identifiers will be made available within Statistics Canada secure access points. Access will only be granted to Statistics Canada deemed employees following the standard approval process. Research reports and presentations will be generated from the analysis files. Only non-confidential aggregate statistics and tables conforming to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act and any applicable requirements of the Privacy Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada

Linkage of the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY) to explore the neurological adverse effects of air pollution on children (016-2023)

Linkage of the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY) to explore the neurological adverse effects of air pollution on children (016-2023)

Purpose: The purpose of the project is to examine the association of air pollution exposure both pre-conception and during the prenatal period (based on the mother’s address in the Canadian Vital Statistics - Births database and the T1FF tax file) with health outcomes of children (based on the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth). Future research could also use the linked file to examine the association of perinatal outcomes with other child health outcomes. This project will enhance our understanding about associations between air pollution and child health outcomes.

Output: Only aggregate statistical outputs that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be disseminated. All products specifically delivered to Health Canada will contain aggregate outputs (no microdata). All products from the linked data will be disseminated in accordance with Statistics Canada's policies, guidelines and standards. The analytical file will not contain any personal identifiers. Outputs from this file may include a wide range of data and analytical products

Production of demographic analyses to support the preparation of population projections using the Demosim microsimulation model (017-2023)

Production of demographic analyses to support the preparation of population projections using the Demosim microsimulation model (017-2023)

Purpose: As part of the microsimulation Population Projections Program, we aim to link data that will be used to produce various demographic analyses, which, in turn, will serve to produce projection parameters and assumptions required to update the population projections, produced with the Demosim microsimulation model, of several sub-groups of the Canadian population, such as Indigenous populations, immigrant populations, racialized groups, language groups, etc. These projections will be used by a wide variety of users inside and outside Statistics Canada, including partners from various federal and provincial departments, researchers, academics, and the general public. The project also aims at documenting the demographic analyses produced during the preparation of the projections and at publishing the results of these analyses in different formats, including scientific articles, technical reports, feasibility studies, internal or external presentations, etc.

Output: Only aggregate data that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside Statistics Canada. The different datasets will be anonymized and will respect the restrictions specific to each dataset (e.g., vital statistics, Indian Register). The key results from the demographic analyses will be used to produce projection assumptions and parameters, and will be published as technical documents, analytical reports, scientific articles and/or presentations.

Linkage of the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability to the 2021 Census of Population (018-2023)

Linkage of the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability to the 2021 Census of Population (018-2023)

Purpose: The main objective of the microdata linkage is to create a detailed statistical portrait of persons with disabilities in Canada. The Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) analytical file is used in part to estimate disability rates, but also to compare the characteristics of persons with and without a disability at various levels of geography.

Output: Only aggregate statistical estimates that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada. Linked information from the 2022 CSD and the 2021 Census of Population will be used in analytical articles and other data products released from the 2022 CSD, beginning with the initial release of the data on December 1st, 2023. This coincides with the International Day for Persons with Disabilities (IDPD).

To support the first release on December 1st, 2023, and subsequent releases taking place in March 2024, researchers from Employment and Social Development Canada will sign a Microdata Service Contract to give them access, as Statistics Canada deemed employees, to a preliminary 2022 CSD file linked with 2021 Census data. This will enable them to provide expertise in data validation for certain variables, as well as conduct data development and analysis. All work undertaken by deemed employees will take place in Statistics Canada’s Federal Research Data Centre.

The final linked file is released to the Statistics Canada Research Data Centres in the winter of 2024, and used to support projects such as the SPSD-M (microsimulation model for persons with disabilities).

All products containing linked data will be disseminated in accordance with Statistics Canada’s polices, guidelines and standards.

Addition of the National Household Survey to the Linkable File Environment (LFE) of Statistics Canada (019-2023)

Addition of the National Household Survey to the Linkable File Environment (LFE) of Statistics Canada (019-2023)

Purpose: The proposed activity would link the enterprises in the Linkable File Environment (LFE) of the Centre for Special Business Projects (CSBP) to the National Household Survey.

The initial usage of the linkage of the NHS and the LFE is a part of the Business Innovation and Growth Support project between the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada (TBS) and Statistics Canada. BIGS requires the linkage of the NHS to the LFE so that TBS can evaluate whether the federal government support programs to businesses are efficient, equitable, diversified, and inclusive for specific population groups, such as women, indigenous peoples, visible minorities, people with disabilities, single parents, and members of official language minority communities.

Output: Analytical datasets will be placed in Statistics Canada’s Research Data Centres (RDCs) and access will be granted following the standard RDC approval process. No analytical datafile will be released. Only non-confidential aggregate statistical outputs and analyses that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside Statistics Canada. Access to the linked microdata will be restricted to Statistics Canada employees and Statistics Canada deemed employees whose assigned work duties require such access. Deemed employees may access the anonymized microdata in short-term projects following the standard approval process for access via Statistics Canada’s RDCs.

Outputs will include data tables which provide more detailed descriptive statistics regarding the types of entrepreneurs and workforce of Canadian enterprises for specific population groups benefiting from federal government support. TBS, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and other government bodies and researchers will utilize these outputs to build and enhance policies, programs and tools that promote fairness, equity, and inclusion across the diversity of entrepreneurs and employees, with the goal of boosting Canada’s economic health, sustainability, and productivity.

Linkage of the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database to Pension Plans in Canada to conduct analysis on the labour market impacts of employer-pension plans (020-2023)

Linkage of the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database to Pension Plans in Canada to conduct analysis on the labour market impacts of employer-pension plans (020-2023)

Purpose: The first goal of this project is to determine the characteristics of firms offering pensions plans and how employer-pensions have been shaped by public policies. The second goal is to assess how these pensions affect the type and pace at which workers join and exit these firms. Finally, the project will look at how these pensions affect the earnings of workers of different ages. The findings of the study will help identify gaps in pension coverage across Canadian society and provide valuable information for the design of pension legislation.

Output: Only non-confidential aggregate statistical outputs and analyses that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada. The release of the vetted outputs will be done by Statistics Canada staff. The information will be presented in the form of tables of regression results and summary statistics related to the project’s goal. The anonymized analytical file will be made available through Statistics Canada Secure Access Points (such as research data centres), and access will be granted to Statistics Canada deemed employees following the standard approval process. The clients will also have to become Statistics Canada deemed employee to access the data through an approved secure access point.

Linkage of beneficiary enterprises of R&D and innovation grants from the Ministry of the Economy, Innovation and Energy of the Government of Quebec from 2013-2014 to 2018-2019 to the Linkable File Environment (021-2023)

Linkage of beneficiary enterprises of R&D and innovation grants from the Ministry of the Economy, Innovation and Energy of the Government of Quebec from 2013-2014 to 2018-2019 to the Linkable File Environment (021-2023)

Purpose: This project aims to link beneficiary enterprises of R&D and innovation grants from the Ministry of the Economy, Innovation and Energy of the Government of Quebec from 2013-2014 to 2018-2019 to the Linkable File Environment of Statistics Canada. The linked list of enterprises will then be used to produce custom tables of non-confidential aggregated statistics and an analytical report on the impact of R&D, innovation grants and tax credits on business productivity by comparing, between the receipt of support and after support, observed outcomes between beneficiary enterprises from the treatment group and non-beneficiary enterprises from the control group.

Output: The final output will be custom tables of non-confidential aggregated statistics and an analytical report on the impact of R&D, innovation grants and tax credits on business productivity by comparing, between the receipt of support and after support, observed outcomes between beneficiary enterprises from the treatment group and non-beneficiary enterprises from the control group.

Only non-confidential aggregated statistical results and analysis in compliance with the Statistics Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada.

Linkage of the Canadian Internet Use Survey to tax, immigration and Census data for the addition of other statistical variables (023-2023)

Linkage of the Canadian Internet Use Survey to tax, immigration and Census data for the addition of other statistical variables (023-2023)

Purpose: The purpose of the linkage is to respond to the data needs of the Government of Canada to measure the digital economy, including informing the Universal Broadband Fund. As the barriers to accessing digital technologies and their impacts can vary by different socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, it is important to include this perspective when producing statistics where possible to inform relevant policies and programs. Income, language and Immigration statistics are important when looking at differences in Internet access and use to determine barriers and to address gaps specific to the different demographics which influence the digital divide. These data are not collected in the questionnaire and can only be obtained through microdata linkage. 

This linkage offers the opportunity to reduce response burden by not having to asking additional questions, and increases data quality through the use of administrative data.

Output: Only aggregate data that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada. Findings are expected to be used to inform policy, for research papers, internal and external reporting documents, presentations at workshops and conferences, and external publications.

An anonymized analytical dataset, will be made available via Statistics Canada Secure Access Points, and access will only be granted to Statistics Canada deemed employees following the standard approval process. In addition, a public use microdata file (PUMF) will be made available through Statistics Canada’s PUMF platform.

Linkage of the Canadian Internet Use Survey to tax, immigration and Census data for the addition of other statistical variables (025-2023)

Diversity indicators for businesses participating in the Canada Digital Adoption Program (025-2023)

Purpose: The goal of this project is to fill a data gap for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) on the number of businesses participating in the Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP) that are owned by Employment Equity groups.

To undertake this project, a list of businesses participating in CDAP will be linked to Statistics Canada’s Business Register and the Canadian Employer Employee Dynamics Database. The resulting linked data will be used to produce counts of businesses by province or territory and industry for the following groups based on majority ownership: Indigenous peoples, racialized groups (and sub-groups, if possible), women, persons with disabilities, and newcomers to Canada (within the last five years).

Output: Statistics Canada will provide tables to ISED containing counts of businesses by province/territory and industry for the following groups based on majority ownership: Indigenous peoples, racialized groups (and sub-groups, if possible), women, persons with disabilities, and newcomers to Canada (within the last five years, determined using the year of landing in Canada based on the Longitudinal Immigration Database).

Only non-confidential aggregate statistical outputs that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada.

Social Linkage of the Agriculture Population to determine the social characteristics of those employed in the agriculture sector and farm owners (027-2023)

Social Linkage of the Agriculture Population to determine the social characteristics of those employed in the agriculture sector and farm owners (027-2023)

Purpose: The Social Linkage of the Agriculture Population will provide a wealth of socio-economic data on farm operators and the people who work in agriculture, without increasing respondent burden. The linkage will enable a detailed analysis on social indicators (disability, immigration status, sex) that are present among agriculture employees and farm operators. The linkage will provide a wealth of information to develop informed policy and address diversity and inclusion priorities for the farming community.

Output: Only aggregate statistical estimates that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada. Outputs will include Common Output Database Repository (CODR) tabulations to be released on the Statistics Canada website, ad-hoc data requests from clients on demand, as well as other analytical, research or technical articles that may be released.

Record linkage between tax data and the 2021 Census to examine the characteristics of emigrants (028-2023)

Record linkage between tax data and the 2021 Census to examine the characteristics of emigrants (028-2023)

Purpose: The goal of the linkage is to identify and establish the demographic and socioeconomic profile of emigrants for 2021. This linkage will provide high-quality information on emigrants and on their characteristics that cannot be found elsewhere while reducing costs and response burden on the Canadian population.

Product: The linked data will be used to compute estimates that will feed analytical products. Only aggregate statistics and analyzes that comply with the Statistics Act will be disseminated outside Statistics Canada.

Study on mortality and cancer diagnoses in Quebec employees of the Rio Tinto Alcan primary aluminum refinery, update of the linkage between the Rio Tinto Alcan Workers file and the Canadian Vital Statistics – Death database (CVSD) (030-2023)

Study on mortality and cancer diagnoses in Quebec employees of the Rio Tinto Alcan primary aluminum refinery, update of the linkage between the Rio Tinto Alcan Workers file and the Canadian Vital Statistics – Death database (CVSD) (030-2023)

Purpose: This study follows on a series of four epidemiological studies on mortality and new cancer diagnoses in workers at Rio Tinto Alcan’s Quebec aluminium smelters. It is an update (as at December 31, 2019) of data on mortality and cancer incidence in workers hired between January 1, 1950 and December 31, 2019.

Output: The research team will receive de-identified files from Statistics Canada (deaths), from the Quebec Cancer Registry (cancers incidence) and from Rio Tinto Alcan (demographic data; work experience; exposure to PAHs; tobacco use), each with a unique identifier key created for this study. Only members of the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST) research team who signed a confidentiality agreement will look at, analyze and use these microdata files. These files will be accessed through Statistics Canada’s research data centres in accordance with the required standard approval process. The source datasets will be anonymized and in compliance with the restrictions in place related to the variables for source datasets (e.g., hospitals, vital statistics and the assessed record file). The data from these files will help to produce mortality rate and cancer incidence indicators. The results of the analysis will be presented in the form of aggregated tables, in a study report and in scientific articles in accordance with the requirements of the Statistics Act.

The CHIRP (Children with IncarceRated Parents) Study: Microdata Linkage of Corrections Data with Vital Statistics, Child Tax Benefits and Hospital Discharge Data (031-2023)

The CHIRP (Children with IncarceRated Parents) Study: Microdata Linkage of Corrections Data with Vital Statistics, Child Tax Benefits and Hospital Discharge Data (031-2023)

Purpose: The main objective of the CHIRP (Children with IncarceRated Parents) Study is to identify children who experience parental incarceration, using data from the Canadian Correctional Services Survey (CCSS), the Canadian Vital Statistics database, the Discharge Abstract Database, and the Canadian Child Tax Benefits database. Through this data linkage, an estimate of the actual number of children experiencing parental incarceration can be determined, as well as he health status and outcomes of this population relative to general population. This project will address data gaps regarding the lack of population-level data on the number of children who experience parental incarceration. The findings of this project could be used to increase the visibility of this population in national and provincial policies, and ultimately to inform the design and delivery of initiatives to better support children who experience parental incarceration.

Output: Only non-confidential aggregated tables, conforming to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act, will be released outside of Statistics Canada. The analytical file, without personal identifiers, will be made available via Statistics Canada’s Secure Access Points (such as Research Data Centres) and access will only be granted to Statistics Canada deemed employees following the standard approval process. Academic researchers involved in the CHIRP project are planning to author an article in a peer-reviewed academic journal detailing the results of their analysis using the linked data from Statistics Canada. In addition, to help facilitate wider public access, a plain language summary of the findings will be developed and posted to the Elizabeth Fry Society of Canada and the Canadian Coalition for Children with Incarcerated Parents (CCCIP) websites.

Government cleantech programs and environmental innovation (032-2023)

Government cleantech programs and environmental innovation (032-2023)

Purpose: The proposed activity would link enterprises in the Business Linkable File Environment (LFE) of the Centre for Special Business Projects (CSBP) to Canadian businesses from Environment and Climate Change Canada' Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program open database, as part of the Business Innovation and Growth Support (BIGS) project between the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada (TBS) and Statistics Canada. BIGS requires descriptive statistics and data models to better understand determinants of intellectual property development to evaluate government programs and expenditures, with the goals of optimizing Canadian innovation, environmental footprints, patents, inventions, research and development, and employment in research and development.

Output: Only non-confidential aggregate statistical outputs and analyses that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside Statistics Canada. Access to the linked microdata will be restricted to Statistics Canada employees and Statistics Canada deemed employees whose assigned work duties require such access. The linked microdata file will not contain identifiers. Deemed employees will access the linked microdata files in Statistics Canada’s secure password-protected server located at the head office using their Statistics Canada laptops from their secure remote work location.

Outputs will include data tables providing descriptive statistics of enterprises related to environmental innovation, and potentially data models to better understand determinants of environmental innovation. TBS will utilize these data products to tailor policies, programs and tools to help Canadian enterprises innovate and improve their environmental footprints and R&D, with the ultimate goal of boosting Canada’s economic prosperity through green innovation.

Linkage of the Canadian Agricultural Loans Act Program to the Business-Linkable File Environment (034-2023)

Linkage of the Canadian Agricultural Loans Act Program to the Business-Linkable File Environment (034-2023)

Purpose: The main objective of this project is to estimate the effect of the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Canadian Agricultural Loans Act (CALA) program on the financial performance of the recipients. The initial phase will involve preparing profiles of program participants and comparing them to eligible non-participants using the variables in the Business-Linkable File Environment (B-LFE) and the Diversity and Skills Database (DSD). The second phase will involve the use of matching to build a control group, and the use of regression models to study the effect of the program on the financial performance of the recipients (e.g., revenues).

Output: The output will be in the form of summary tables and a fix effects model which will examine the economic performance of businesses that received AAFC financing support to non-supported businesses. The linked AAFC list of businesses will be housed at Statistics Canada’s Centre for Special Business Project (CSBP).

A research dataset will be produced and the full integrated database will be used by a deemed employee research team to produce an analysis and custom-designed table of non-confidential aggregate statistics for AAFC. The output will be analysed for confidentiality by CSBP employees. The output of this project will not be sent to the Canadian Centre for Data Development and Economic Research (CDER). 

Only non-confidential aggregate statistical outputs and analyses that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada.

2022 Indigenous Peoples Survey to the 2021 Census of Population, and 2022 Annual Person Income Masterfile (037-2023)

Linkage of the Canadian Cancer Registry to Statistics Canada administrative data on child and mother to explore outcomes among pediatric cancer patients (036-2023)

Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate the association between environmental pollutant exposures during pregnancy and childhood and paediatric cancer incidence using population-based data linking the Vital Statistics Birth Data (1992-2021) and the Canadian Cancer Registry (1992-2021). This project will enhance our understanding about associations between air pollution and child health outcomes.

Output: Only aggregate statistical outputs that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be disseminated. Access to the linked microdata will be restricted to Statistics Canada employees and Statistics Canada deemed employees whose assigned work duties require such access. All products specifically delivered to Health Canada will contain aggregate outputs (no identifiable microdata). All products from the linked data will be disseminated in accordance with Statistics Canada's policies, guidelines and standards. The analytical file will not contain any personal identifiers. Outputs from this file may include a wide range of data and analytical products. A file will be prepared for use in Statistics Canada Research Data Centres, with appropriate vetting rules.

Linkage of the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability to Tax Data to Generate Enhanced Statistics on People with Disabilities (039-2023)

2022 Indigenous Peoples Survey to the 2021 Census of Population, and 2022 Annual Person Income Masterfile (037-2023)

Purpose: This project is part of Stream 5 of Indigenous Services Canada’s Transformational Approach to Indigenous Data (TAID) which relates to leveraging Statistics Canada’s expertise to support the Indigenous Delivery Partners (IDPs) in building Indigenous data capacity and to improve the visibility of Indigenous People in Canada’s national statistics. The objective of the TAID is to support First Nations, Inuit, and the Métis Nations to build the sustainable data capacity they will need to deliver effective services to their citizens, and to participate meaningfully with other levels of government. 

By integrating data pertaining to income, market rents and shelter costs with the 2022 IPS content, indicators for low-income, housing affordability and core housing need will be produced. Outputs from this linkage will support IDPs in building Indigenous data capacity and to improve the visibility of Indigenous People in Canada’s national statistics. This project will meet the objective of improving the visibility of Indigenous People in Canada’s national statistics as the outputs include research products related to key Indigenous priorities. 

Output: The analytical file, without identifiers, will be made available via Statistics Canada Secure Access Points, such as Research Data Centres (RDCs) where access will only be granted following the standard approval process. Only non-confidential aggregated data and analytical products that conform to the confidentiality provision of the Statistics Act and any applicable requirements of the Privacy Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada. 

Outputs for this project will be centred on Core Housing Need and will be disseminated via CODR tables, new variables on the Indigenous Peoples Survey Masterfile and an infographic

Linkage of the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability to Tax Data to Generate Enhanced Statistics on People with Disabilities (039-2023)

Linkage of the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability to Tax Data to Generate Enhanced Statistics on People with Disabilities (039-2023)

Purpose: The Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) analytical file will be used in part to estimate disability rates for various geographies but also to compare characteristics of persons with and without disabilities, which includes analyses of the financial situation and income support gaps faced by persons with disabilities in Canada. The main objective of the proposed record linkage is therefore to enhance Statistics Canada’s capacity to provide these statistics, through a linkage between the 2022 CSD and tax data.

Output: Results from this data linkage will inform around the current economic context for persons with disabilities in Canada and be used in the development of the Government of Canada’s Disability Inclusion Action Plan. The analytical file, with no personal identifiers, will be made available to deemed employees (researchers) within the Research Data Centers (RDC) and the Federal Research Data Centre (FRDC) that have a valid research topic for the production of statistical materials. Only non-confidential aggregated data and analytical products that conform to the confidentiality provision of the Statistics Act and any applicable requirements of the Privacy Act will be released outside of Statistics Canada.

Linking the Home Care Reporting System to Tax Data to provide Insights into Publicly Funded Home Care for Seniors (040-2023)

Linking the Home Care Reporting System to Tax Data to provide Insights into Publicly Funded Home Care for Seniors (040-2023)

Purpose: The objective of the project is to estimate the prevalence of publicly funded formal long-term home care use among Canadian seniors, examine the main demographic and income characteristics of senior home care clients, document the ability of senior home care clients to perform basic daily selfcare activities, assess the availability of informal care to these clients and present several important metrics related to their access to formal home care services. The study will also examine the financial well-being of long-term senior home care client and provide aggregate statistics related to income and income sources. For this purpose, data from the Home Care Reporting System (HCRS) will be linked to the T1 Family File (T1FF).

Output: Non-confidential aggregate data will be used for possible dissemination products such as research article(s), presentation decks, and/ or reports to stakeholders. The main output of the study will be in the form of a comprehensive technical report summarizing the methodology and key findings. Only non-confidential aggregate statistical outputs and analyses that conform to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act will be released outside Statistics Canada.

Access to the linked microdata will be restricted to Statistics Canada employees. The linkage will be performed at Statistics Canada by Statistics Canada staff, and the linked files will be kept on a secure, password-protected server. The linked microdata file will not contain identifiers.

Supplement to Statistics Canada's Generic Privacy Impact Assessment related to the Canadian Correctional Services Survey (CCSS)

Date: March 2023

Program manager: Director, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics
Director General, Health, Justice, Diversity, and Population

Reference to Personal Information Bank (PIB)

The Canadian Correctional Services Survey was originally considered covered by the Justice Research bank (StatCan PPU 028), however given the expanded nature of the survey and sensitivity of the personal information being collected, a new bank is being requested.

In accordance with the Privacy Act, Statistics Canada is submitting a new institutional personal information bank (PIB) to describe any personal information obtained from the Canadian Correctional Services Survey, for the purposes of the Statistics Act. The following PIB is proposed for review and registration.

Canadian Correctional Services Survey (CCSS)

Description: This bank describes information that is obtained from federal and provincial/territorial correctional services programs in Canada on adults and youth being supervised by correctional services. Personal information may include name, date of birth, sex, Indigenous identity, visible minority group, municipality, postal code, social insurance number, fingerprint section identification number, provincial/territorial health insurance number and provincial/territorial driver's license number.

Class of Individuals: Adults and youth being supervised by provincial/territorial or federal correctional services programs in Canada.

Purpose: The personal information is used to produce statistical data and analyses at a disaggregated level on the federal, provincial/territorial populations supervised under correctional services in Canada. Personal information is collected pursuant to the Statistics Act (Sections 3, 7, 13, 22 (d)).

Consistent Uses: Subject to Statistics Canada's Directive on Microdata Linkage, information on adults and youth being supervised by correctional services may be combined with the Census of Population and the National Household Survey for disaggregated data evaluation, with data on the military veteran population, as well as with key health datasets to better understand the prevalence of mental health issues in the correctional population. Furthermore, CCSS data will be used to produce counts of residents in correctional facilities for the Census of Population collective dwelling counts.

Retention and Disposal Standards: Information is retained until it is no longer required for statistical purposes and then it is destroyed.

RDA Number: 2018/001

Related Record Number: StatCan CCJ 135

TBS Registration: To be assigned by TBS

Bank Number: StatCan PPU 023

Description of statistical activity

Under the authority of the Statistics ActFootnote 1, Statistics Canada's Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics (CCJCSS) conducts the Canadian Correctional Services Survey (CCSS), an administrative dataFootnote 2 survey that collects microdata on adults and youth electronically from correctional services programs in Canada. The objective of the survey is to be a source of national information on corrections, which is directly related to the mandate of the CCJCSS of providing information to the justice community and the public on the nature and extent of crime and victimization and the administration of criminal and civil justice in Canada.

The CCJCSS is the focal point of a federal-provincial-territorial partnership for the collection of justice information in Canada. This partnership, known as the National Justice Statistics Initiative (NJSI), is composed of representatives of the federal, provincial and territorial governments responsible for the administration of justice in Canada, and Statistics Canada. Development of the CCSS was guided by the NJSI to fill data needs and inform federal and provincial policy makers in the field of justice and public safety, managers of correctional services programs, researchers, academics and the public, on key indicators related to the correctional population.

One of the most important needs is information related to repeated involvement with the criminal justice system, a key justice priority identified by Deputy Ministers responsible for Justice and Public Safety, as well as other policy makers and justice administrators. To respond to this need, Public Safety Canada and the CCJCSS developed an ongoing pan-Canadian program of repeated contact – or "re-contact" – with the criminal justice system. The CCSS contributes the correctional services information needed for this program. In addition, recent consultation through the Engagement on Corrections Representation Data and Analysis Strategy involved respondents from a wide and diverse range of perspectives, including: Indigenous and racialized groups and organizations; corrections agencies; academics; and other interested parties at the national and provincial/teritorial government levels. The Engagement identified the need for Statistics Canada to develop population-based indicators and re-contact indicators using disaggregated data to measure representation of sub-populations in correctional systems, as well as the need to further analyze relationships between socio-economic and mental health issues and over-representation. The CCSS is the only high-quality source of information on individuals under supervision within the correctional system that can be combined with information on the general population to provide these indicators and allow analysis of these critical justice issues to meet data needs.

Statistics Canada began development of the CCSS in 2014 and began collection in 2016. The survey is currently implemented in six jurisdictions: Newfoundland and Labrador (youth corrections only), Nova Scotia, Ontario (adult corrections only), Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. The CCJCSS is now expanding the coverage of the survey to include the remaining provincial and territorial correctional services, as well as federal correctional services. These stakeholders are:

  • Newfoundland and Labrador Justice and Public Safety
  • Prince Edward Island Community and Correctional Services
  • New-Brunswick Public Safety
  • Ministère de la sécurité publique du Québec
  • Ministère de la santé et des services sociaux du Québec
  • Ontario Children Community and Social Services- youth division
  • Manitoba Justice - Corrections
  • Yukon Correctional Services
  • Yukon Health and Social Services
  • Northwest Territories Department of Justice, Corrections Service
  • Nunavut Justice - Corrections
  • Correctional Service Canada

To achieve the survey's objective, Statistics Canada collects personal information on individuals under correctional supervision across the country including:

  • direct identifiers of persons supervised by corrections (where available and agreed to by the correctional program):
    • name
    • aliases
    • address (postal code)
    • date of birth
    • Social Insurance Number
    • FPS-CPIC number
    • Driver's Licence Number
    • Health Insurance Number
  • demographic information of persons being supervised (e.g., sex, Indigenous identity, racialized group)
  • their legal hold status while in correctional services
  • offences and conditions related to various court orders
  • events related to the person that occur during the period of supervision
  • results of any needs assessments done on persons while in correctional services.

The CCSS provides information to the public, media, academics and researchers on trends in correctional services, as well as demographic information on the population under correctional supervision in Canada. Survey results, including information on admissions to correctional services as well as the number of persons supervised by correctional services and their characteristics, are published annually in a series of data tables on the Statistics Canada website. In addition, special topic analyses in JuristatFootnote 3 publications as well as record linkage studies using CCSS data explore key issues facing the criminal justice system. Expanding coverage of the CCSS means that these measures and analyses can be produced at the national level, meeting the data needs and gaps currently identified by provincial/territorial and federal justice stakeholders.

To-date, linkage of the CCSS to internal statistical databases, more specifically linkage of the CCSS to the Census of Population and the National Household Survey for disaggregated data evaluation, as well as linkage to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR2) Survey and the Integrated Criminal Court Survey (ICCS) to study re-contact with the criminal justice system, have been undertaken. Statistics Canada's microdata linkage and related statistical activities were assessed in Statistics Canada's Generic Privacy Impact Assessment.Footnote 4 All data linkage activities are subject to established governanceFootnote 5, and are assessed against the privacy principles as well as necessity and proportionalityFootnote 6. All approved linkages are published on Statistics Canada's websiteFootnote 7.

Analytical files will be used by Statistics Canada to produce non-confidential aggregate statistical tables and analytical reports, such as reports for Juristat. Anonymized CCSS analytical files, as well as integrated corrections and criminal court data will also be placed in Statistics Canada's Research Data Centres (RDCs)Footnote 8 to facilitate research on key justice issues such as re-contact, within a secure research environment. Confidentiality vetting guidelines specific to the CCSS will be developed to prevent the release of potentially sensitive information that pertains to the characteristics of a particular individual. Researchers must become deemed employees of Statistics Canada to access the files in the RDCs. Additionally, access will only be granted once a research proposal has been approved.

Future plans under consideration also include linkage with data on the military veteran population, as well as linkage with other datasets via the Social Data Linkage Environment (SDLE)Footnote 9 to explore issues relevant to the justice community (for example, the prevalence of mental health issues in the correctional population). Furthermore, CCSS data will be used to produce counts of residents in correctional facilities for the Census of Population collective dwelling countsFootnote 10.

Reason for supplement

While the Generic Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) addresses most of the privacy and security risks related to statistical activities conducted by Statistics Canada, this supplement was developed due to the breadth (both in terms of the number of variables being collected as well as the expanded jurisdictional coverage) and overall sensitivity of the personal information being requested with relation to the affected individuals. Further, personal information collection includes youth, which further raises the sensitivity level of the collection of personal information. As is the case with all PIAs, Statistics Canada's privacy framework ensures that elements of privacy protection and privacy controls are documented and applied.

Necessity and Proportionality

The use of personal information for the activity can be justified against Statistics Canada's Necessity and Proportionality Framework:

  1. Necessity: Information from the CCSS informs correctional services programs on the need for and development of programming to address specific needs (i.e., physical and mental health of persons under correctional supervision, rehabilitation and treatment programs,) as well as manage facility capacity and case flow – resulting in many potential and direct benefits to the covered populations.

    Statistics Canada requires the personal information to produce accurate information on the correctional population in Canada to fulfill the agency's statistical mandate, and specifically to produce valuable demographic information at a disaggregated level on the federal, provincial and territorial populations supervised under correctional services. The CCSS national data requirements (i.e., survey variables) were developed in consultation with the National Justice Statistics Initiative (NJSI), the federal-provincial-territorial partnership for the collection of information on the nature and extent of crime and the administration of civil and criminal justice in Canada.

    In 2021, Statistics Canada also engaged numerous partners of interest, including Indigenous and racialized community groups and organizations, and sought input through the Engagement on Corrections Representation Data and Analysis Strategy, on the development of its statistical program, including the CCSS. The engagement identified several data needs, notably including the need for Statistics Canada to develop population-based indicators and re-contact indicators using disaggregated data to measure representation of sub-populations in correctional systems, as well as the need to further analyze relationships between socio-economic and mental health issues and over-representation.

    The CCSS allows for the development of these indicators, as well as record linkage opportunities to meet these research needs. For example, information on offender characteristics collected by the CCSS, such as sex, Indigenous identity and racialized group, allows the integration of corrections and population statistics to create population-based metrics needed to address issues such as the overrepresentation of certain groups (e.g., Indigenous peoples and the Black population) within correctional services programs across the country.

    Furthermore, concerns related to the overrepresentation of Indigenous and racialized individuals in the Canadian criminal justice system reveal important gaps in the availability of disaggregated dataFootnote 11. Full CCSS coverage allows the disaggregation of data and the ability to study socio-economic factors impacting overrepresentation, such as mental health, substance use, homelessness, income, and education, not only within correctional services, but within the broader social and justice systems. CCSS data can help inform correctional services programs on the need for and development of programming to address specific needs of those involved under correctional supervision, for example mental health needs, rehabilitation and treatment programming, as well as programs aimed at successful community integration.

    The personal identifiers collected by the CCSS enable record linkage of CCSS data with key health administrative datasets (such as Vital Statistics, National Ambulatory Care Reporting System and the Discharge Abstract Database) to better understand, for example, re-contact, overrepresentation, and the prevalence of mental health issues in the correctional population. This information is needed to meet the data gaps and needs identified by Deputy Ministers responsible for Justice and Public Safety, as well as other policy makers and justice stakeholders including all provincial, territorial and federal correctional services programs in Canada. Insight from the CCSS provides the social and economic context of the correctional population and allows evidence-based decision making. The full national picture of the correctional system, needed for comprehensive re-contact analysis for example, is only possible with the participation of all jurisdictions in the CCSS. Full coverage allows for analysis of all provincial, territorial and federal jurisdictions which is most relevant to all Canadians.

  2. Effectiveness - Working assumptions:This iteration to expand coverage of the CCSS allows more consistent and accurate data across all jurisdictions. Given that the CCSS was previously in collection, Statistics Canada has validated the effectiveness of collecting this information directly from institutions to generate statistics on the correctional services population. The current iteration is now expanding the collection to increase the coverage of the dataset, and thus the effectiveness of the insights being derived from it.

    The personal information being collected and linked from existing databases will be used to enhance the analytical capacity to examine the total federal and provincial/territorial correctional populations at a national level once full coverage is achieved. In addition, as more jurisdictions implement the CCSS, more correctional populations across regions can be studied in a more comprehensive manner and be better understood, raising the quality of the analysis of the CCSS as a whole.

    New insights derived from the inclusion of the entire federal and provincial/territorial correctional population in the CCSS will improve traditional indicators to report on disaggregated data, such as producing incarceration rates by Indigenous identity and racialized group. It will also provide more relevant indicators, like re-contact of sentenced individuals after release, to meet the needs of justice stakeholders.

  3. Proportionality: The CCSS collects direct identifiers such as name, address and date of birth of individuals under correctional supervision, as well as demographic characteristics and information relating to their periods of supervision (e.g., their legal hold status, offence and event information). The direct identifiers captured by the CCSS are critical to the proposed record linkage studies. These direct identifiers will be sent to the linkage team to establish linkages with other Statistics Canada datasets.

    Only the variables required to achieve the statistical goals of the survey will be requested in order to mitigate potential impacts to the privacy of the affected individuals under correctional supervision. All data collected by the CCSS are considered the minimum data required to address the data needs and gaps identified by Deputy Ministers, the NJSI, and other partners and stakeholders through the Engagement on Corrections Representation Data and Analysis Strategy.

    Standard best practices with respect to administrative data collection and publication will be followed. Personal identifiers will be removed from the analytical file as soon as operationally feasible and in keeping with Statistics Canada's practices, as outlined in the agency's Generic PIAFootnote 12. The public benefits of the research findings are expected to inform policies and lead to positive changes within correctional services and programs in Canada.

    The CCSS data help fill the need to inform evidence-driven approaches to crime prevention and programs aimed at reducing recidivism, as well as programs designed for rehabilitation, community integration, and public safety. In addition, population-based measures and overrepresentation indicators derived from the CCSS are beneficial to design culturally appropriate programs, address inequities, and engage with communities in a meaningful way. These measures and analyses, as well as the capacity for data disaggregation, are only possible with the use of the personal information collected by the CCSS. The potential benefits and positive changes to social and justice-related programs and services are believed to be proportional to the overall risks to privacy.

  4. Alternatives: Asking for information that has already been captured in administrative data from the jurisdictions and then subsequently through linkage to other administrative data sources would be extremely burdensome and likely of much lower quality, especially in accuracy due to recall errors. Overall, survey collection from individuals is not recommended over administrative data collection and subsequent microdata linkage, as it is the only method to identify the profile of individuals in terms of understanding social, economic, health, and demographic trends related to the correctional population.

    Administrative data from the federal, provincial and territorial correctional services programs in Canada represent the only practical and accurate source of information to collect and meet the national data requirements of the CCSS approved by the National Justice Statistics Initiative in 2014.

    The foundation for the CCSS is an older legacy survey, the Integrated Correctional Services Survey (ICSS), which also collects correctional services microdata for select jurisdictions. However, several socio-demographic variables in the ICSS (e.g., Indigenous status, employment status and educational attainment) do not meet current statistical standards and the personal identifiers collected are insufficient to undertake record linkage with other administrative data sources. Several jurisdictions no longer report to the ICSS and have transitioned to CCSS reporting.

    The intent of the CCSS is to fully replace the ICSS, as well as most components of the other correctional surveys which collect aggregate data only and don't allow data disaggregation or record linkage (i.e., the Adult Correctional Services Survey, the Youth Custody and Community Services Survey and the Corrections Key Indicator Report). As such, administration of the CCSS streamlines data collection and production, reduces respondent burden, improves quality of the data, and increases timeliness of data dissemination.

    The CCSS is the only source of information collected according to standard national requirements that allows disaggregated dataFootnote 13 analysis by categories such as sex, Indigenous identity, and racialized group for the correctional populations in Canada.

Mitigation factors

The overall risk of harm to the survey respondents has been deemed manageable with existing Statistics Canada safeguards that are described in Statistics Canada's Generic Privacy Impact Assessment, with particular emphasis on the following measures:

  • The CCSS uses a separate data processing system for personal identifiers which maintains strict separation between personal identifiers and other data elements collected by the survey. This system has implemented enhanced security measures:
    • (a two-tier system of permissions) for the personal identifier files
    • the data are stored and processed separately
    • the data are accessible to only three employees responsible for processing the data and creating analytical files,
    • the data are never disclosed.
  • Statistics Canada applies strict confidentiality practices and rigorous data quality processes during all production and dissemination activities.
  • Experts at Statistics Canada have been consulted to ensure that the collection of data for the CCSS will be done ethically. The risks for residual disclosure are as low as possible, as access to personal information data is limited to a small number of persons (at any given point in time fewer than 10 persons can view these data).
  • Analytical data files will contain only anonymized identification numbers and will not include any information that would directly identify an individual.
  • For record linkage purposes, at no point during or after the record linkage process are personal identifiers brought together with analytical data in one dataset.
  • CCSS products are vetted by subject matter analysts and methodologists to ensure the identity of persons under correctional supervision is never disclosed directly or indirectly.

Conclusion

This assessment concludes that, with the existing Statistics Canada safeguards, any remaining risks are such that Statistics Canada is prepared to accept and manage the risk.

Missing Persons Data Standards Consultative Engagement

Opened: June 2023

Consultative engagement activities – Phase 3

This consultative engagement initiative deals with topics which may negatively impact the reader due to its subject matter. If you are affected by the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people and need immediate emotional assistance, please call 1-844-413-6649.

Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada has partnered with Statistics Canada to initiate a consultative engagement process in response to Call for Justice 9.5.v, one of the 231 Calls for Justice outlined in the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls: Reclaiming Power and Place The input received as part of this consultative process will form the basis of recommendations leading to the development of national data standards for police services. The objective of this work is to improve the information police gather on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, 2SLGBTQQIA+ persons, vulnerable, marginalized, and racialized persons. Reliable and consistent information can play a role in helping to find missing persons and build prevention strategies. Data will allow for regular, continuous, and consistent statistical reporting and monitoring at national, provincial, and sub-provincial levels.

In the first two phases of this initiative, the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics and Engagement and Data Services Division have heard from several National Indigenous Organizations and other Indigenous organizations and governments, federal, provincial, and territorial government departments, and non-governmental organizations representing marginalized populations.

How to get involved

Statistics Canada will continue to engage with organizations and governments until the end of 2024 through various formats including virtual group discussions, written submissions, and online forms. Disclosure of personal experiences are not within the scope of this engagement.

If you would like to obtain more information on this engagement initiative or are interested in participating, please contact us by email at consultativeengagement-mobilisationconsultative@statcan.gc.ca.

Statistics Canada is committed to respecting the privacy of participants. All personal information created, held, or collected by the agency is protected by the Privacy Act. For more information on Statistics Canada's privacy policies, please consult the privacy notice.

Results

Summary results of the engagement initiatives will be published online when available.

Variant of NAICS Canada 2022 Version 1.0 – Quarterly Survey of Financial Statements (QSFS)

Industry grouping name Code NAICS codes of the industries included in the grouping
Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting 11  
Oil and gas extraction and support services 21A 211110, 211141, 211142, 213111, 213118
Mining and quarrying (except oil and gas) and support activities 21B 212114, 212115, 212116, 212210, 212220, 212231, 212232, 212233, 212291, 212299, 212314, 212315, 212316, 212317, 212323, 212326, 212392, 212393, 212394, 212395, 212396, 212397, 212398 , 213117, 213119
Utilities 22  
Construction 23  
Food and soft drink and ice manufacturing 31A 311111, 311119, 311211, 311214, 311221, 311224, 311225, 311230, 311310, 311340, 311351, 311352, 311410, 311420, 311511, 311515, 311520, 311614, 311615, 311616, 311617, 311619, 311710, 311811, 311814, 311821, 311824, 311830, 311911, 311919, 311920, 311930, 311940, 311990, 312110
Alcohol beverage, tobacco and cannabis product manufacturing 312A 312120, 312130, 312140, 312210, 312220, 312310
Wood product and paper manufacturing 32A 321111, 321112, 321114, 321211, 321212, 321215, 321216, 321217, 321911, 321919, 321920, 321991, 321992, 321999, 322111, 322112, 322121, 322122, 322130, 322211, 322212, 322219, 322220, 322230, 322291, 322299
Petroleum and coal product manufacturing 324  
Basic chemical manufacturing and resin, synthetic rubber, and artificial and synthetic fibres and filaments manufacturing 325A 325110, 325120, 325130, 325181, 325189, 325190, 325210, 325220
Pharmaceutical and medecine manufacturing, and soap, agricultural chemicals, paint and other chemical product manufacturing 325B 325313, 325314, 325320, 325410, 325510, 325520, 325610, 325620, 325910, 325920, 325991, 325999
Plastics and rubber products manufacturing 326  
Non-metallic mineral product manufacturing 327  
Primary metal and fabricated metal product and machinery manufacturing 33A 331110, 331210, 331221, 331222, 331313, 331317, 331410, 331420, 331490, 331511, 331514, 331523, 331529, 332113, 332118, 332210, 332311, 332314, 332319, 332321, 332329, 332410, 332420, 332431, 332439, 332510, 332611, 332619, 332710, 332720, 332810, 332910, 332991, 332999, 333110, 333120, 333130, 333245, 333246, 333247, 333248, 333310, 333413, 333416, 333511, 333519, 333611, 333619, 333910, 333920, 333990
Computer and electronic equipment manufacturing 334  
Motor vehicle and trailer manufacturing 336A 336110, 336120, 336211, 336212, 336215
Motor vehicle parts manufacturing 3363  
Aerospace, rail and ship products and other transportation equipment manufacturing 336B 336410, 336510, 336990, 336611, 336612
Clothing, textile, leather and furniture manufacturing, and other manufacturing 3A 313110, 313210, 313220, 313230, 313240, 313310, 313320, 314110, 314120, 314910, 314990, 315110, 315190, 315210, 315220, 315241, 315249, 315281, 315289, 315990, 316110, 316210, 316990, 323113, 323114, 323115, 323116, 323119, 323120, 335110, 335120, 335210, 335223, 335229, 335311, 335312, 335315, 335910, 335920, 335930, 335990, 337110, 337121, 337123, 337126, 337127, 337213, 337214, 337215, 337910, 337920, 339110, 339910, 339920, 339930, 339940, 339950, 339990
Motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts and accessories merchant wholesalers 415  
Building material and supplies merchant wholesalers 416  
Machinery, equipment and supplies merchant wholesalers 417  
Other wholesalers 41A 411110, 411120, 411130, 411190, 412110, 413110, 413120, 413130, 413140, 413150, 413160, 413190, 413210, 413220, 413310, 413410, 414110, 414120, 414130, 414210, 414220, 414310, 414320, 414330, 414390, 414410, 414420, 414430, 414440, 414450, 414460, 414470, 414510, 414520, 418110, 418120, 418190, 418210, 418220, 418310, 418320, 418390, 418410, 418510, 418610, 418930, 418990, 419110, 419120
Motor vehicle and parts dealers 441  
Food and beverage stores 445  
Clothing, sporting goods, and general merchandise stores 44A 455110, 455211, 455212, 455219, 458111, 458112, 458113, 458114, 458115, 458116, 458119, 458210, 458310, 458320, 459111, 459112, 459113, 459119, 459120, 459130, 459140, 459210
Other retailers 44B 444110, 444120, 444140, 444180, 444230, 444240, 445132, 449110, 449121, 449122, 449123, 449129, 449211, 449212, 449213, 449214, 456110, 456120, 456130, 456191, 456199, 457110, 457120, 457211, 457212, 457219, 459310, 459410, 459420, 459510, 459910, 459920, 459930, 459992, 459993, 459999
Transportation, postal and couriers services, and support activities for transportation 4A 481110, 481214, 481215, 482112, 482113, 482114, 483115, 483116, 483213, 483214, 484110, 484121, 484122, 484210, 484221, 484222, 484223, 484229, 484231, 484232, 484233, 484239, 485110, 485210, 485310, 485320, 485410, 485510, 485990, 487110, 487210, 487990, 488111, 488119, 488190, 488210, 488310, 488320, 488331, 488332, 488339, 488390, 488410, 488490, 488511, 488519, 488990, 491110, 492110, 492210
Pipelines 486  
Warehousing 493  
Publishing, motion picture and sound recording, broadcasting, and information services 51A 512110, 512120, 512130, 512190, 512230, 512240, 512250, 512290, 513110, 513120, 513130, 513140, 513190, 513211, 513212, 516110, 516120, 516211, 516212, 516219, 518210, 519211, 519212, 519290
Telecommunications 517  
Real estate 531  
Rental and leasing of automotive, machinery and equipment, and other goods 53A 532111, 532112, 532120, 532210, 532280, 532310, 532410, 532420, 532490, 533110
Professional, scientific and technical services 54  
Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services 56  
Educational, health care and social assistance services 6A 611110, 611210, 611310, 611410, 611420, 611430, 611510, 611610, 611620, 611630, 611690, 611710, 621110, 621210, 621310, 621320, 621330, 621340, 621390, 621410, 621420, 621494, 621499, 621510, 621610, 621911, 621912, 621990, 622111, 622112, 622210, 622310, 623110, 623210, 623221, 623222, 623310, 623991, 623992, 623993, 623999, 624110, 624120, 624190, 624210, 624220, 624230, 624310, 624410
Arts, entertainment and recreation, and accommodation and food services 7A 711111, 711112, 711120, 711130, 711190, 711213, 711214, 711215, 711217, 711311, 711319, 711321, 711322, 711329, 711411, 711412, 711511, 711512, 711513, 712111, 712115, 712119, 712120, 712130, 712190, 713110, 713120, 713210, 713291, 713299, 713910, 713920, 713930, 713940, 713950, 713991, 713992, 713999, 721111, 721112, 721113, 721114, 721120, 721191, 721192, 721198, 721211, 721212, 721213, 721310, 722310, 722320, 722330, 722410, 722511, 722512
Repair, maintenance and personal services 81A 811112, 811113, 811121, 811122, 811192, 811199, 811210, 811310, 811411, 811412, 811420, 811430, 811490, 812114, 812115, 812116, 812190, 812210, 812220, 812310, 812320, 812330, 812910, 812921, 812922, 812930, 812990
Banking and other depository credit intermediation 5221A 522111, 522112, 522190
Local credit unions 522130  
Credit card issuing, sales financing and consumer lending 5222A 522210, 522220, 522291
All other non-depository credit intermediation 522299  
Central credit unions 522321  
Financial transactions processing, loan brokers, and other activities related to credit intermediation 5223B 522310, 522329, 522390
Securities and commodity contracts dealing 5231A 523110, 523130
Securities and commodity brokerage 5231B 523120, 523140
Miscellaneous Intermediation  523910  
Securities and commodity exchanges, portfolio management and miscellaneous financial investment activity 523A 523210, 523920, 523930, 523990
Life, health and medical insurance carriers 5241A 524111, 524112, 524131, 524132
Property and casualty insurance carriers 5241B 524121, 524122, 524123, 524124, 524125, 524129, 524133, 524134, 524135, 524139
Agencies, brokerages and other insurance related activities 5242  

Quarterly Survey of Financial Statements: Weighted Asset Response Rate - first quarter 2023

Weighted Asset Response Rate
Table summary
This table displays the results of Weighted Asset Response Rate. The information is grouped by Release date (appearing as row headers), 2022, Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4, and 2023, Q1 calculated using percentage units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Release date 2022 2023
quarterly (percentage)
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1
May 24, 2023 81.4 80.9 79.0 72.7 57.6
February 23, 2023 79.3 79.2 76.9 55.2 ..
November 23, 2022 76.2 76.1 56.2 .. ..
August 25, 2022 75.0 55.7 .. .. ..
May 25, 2022 56.7 .. .. .. ..
.. not available for a specific reference period
Source: Quarterly Survey of Financial Statements (2501)

The Rationale Behind Deep Neural Network Decisions

By: Oladayo Ogunnoiki, Statistics Canada

Introduction

In May 2016, Microsoft introduced Tay to the Twittersphere. Tay was an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot in "conversational understanding". The more you chatted with Tay, the smarter it would become. However, it didn't take long for the experiment to go awry. Tay was supposed to be engaging people in playful conversation, but this playful banter quickly turned into misogynistic and racist commentary.

Of course, the public was perplexed by this turn of events. If this bot was inherently rude, why wouldn't other AI models also go off course? Most Twitter users felt that this bleak event was only a glimmer of what was to come if our future was indeed rich in AI models. However, most data scientists understood the real reason for Tay's negative commentary – the bot was simply repeating what it had learned from the users themselves (Vincent, 2016).

The world of AI continues to grow exponentially and with stories like this happening all the time, there's a strong need to increase the public's trust in AI products. To gain their trust, transparency and explain-ability is of the utmost importance.

One of the primary questions for anyone interacting with an AI model like Tay, is: "why did the model make that decision?" Multiple tools have been designed to explain the rationale behind these models and answer that question. It may be to no one's surprise that visual explanations are an efficient way of explaining this. In their work, Ramprasaath, et al. (2017) outline the requirements of a good visual explanation– they must be class discriminative and should have a high-resolution. These criteria serve as guidelines for identifying the challenge to be addressed: creating a solution that provides a high resolution and class discriminative visual explanation for decisions of a neural network.

Some of the techniques that provide visual explanations include deconvolution, guided backpropagation, class activation mapping (CAM), Gradient-weighted CAM (Grad-CAM), Grad-CAM++, Hi-Res-CAM, Score-CAM, Ablation-CAM, X-Grad-CAM, Eigen-CAM, Full-Grad, and deep feature factorization. For this article, we'll focus on Grad-CAM.

Grad-CAM is an open-source tool that produces visual explanations for decisions from a large class of convolutional neural networks. It works by highlighting the regions of the image that have the highest influence on the final prediction of the deep neural network, thereby providing insight into the decision-making process of the model.

Grad-CAM is based on CAM which uses the activation of the feature maps with respect to the target class. It's specific to certain types of neural networks, such as the Visual Geometry Group network and residual network (ResNet). It uses the gradient of the target class with respect to the feature maps in the final layer. Grad-CAM is a generic method that can be applied to different types of neural networks. Combining features makes Grad-CAM a reliable and accurate tool for understanding the decision-making process of deep neural networks. Guided Grad-CAM is enhanced by incorporating the gradients of the guided backpropagation process to produce a more refined heatmap. One limitation is that it's only able to visualize the regions of the image that are most important for the final prediction, rather than the entire decision-making process of the deep neural network. This means that it may not provide a complete understanding of how the model is making its predictions.

The advantages of Grad-CAM include:

  • No trade off of model complexity and performance for more model transparency.
  • It's applicable to a broad range of convolutional neural networks (CNNs).
  • It's highly class discriminative.
  • Useful for diagnosing failure modes by uncovering biases in datasets.
  • Helps untrained users to recognize a stronger network than a weaker one, even when the predictions are identical.

Methodology

Grad-CAM can be used in multiple computer vision projects such as image classification, semantic segmentation, object detection, image captioning, visual question answering, etc. It can be applied on CNNs and has recently been made available on transformer architectures.

Highlighted below is how Grad-CAM works in image classification, where the objective is to discriminate between different classes:

The process flow of Gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM)
Description - Figure 1The process flow of Gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM)

An image is passed through a CNN and a task specific network to obtain a raw score for the image's class. Next, the gradients are set to zero for all classes except for the desired class, which is set to one. This signal is then backpropagated to the rectified convolutional feature maps of interest, which are combined to compute a blue heatmap that represents where the model needs to look to decide on the class. Finally, the heatmap is pointwise multiplied with guided backpropagation, resulting in guided Grad-CAM visualizations that are high-resolution and concept-specific.

In the case of an image classification task, to obtain the Grad-CAM class-discriminative localization map,LGrad-CAMc
,  for a model on a specific class, the steps below are followed:

  • For a specific class, c, the partial derivative of the score, yc , of the class, c, in respect to feature maps, Ak , of a convolutional layer is calculated using backpropagation.
    ycAijk
  • The gradients flowing back due to backpropagation are pooled via global average pooling. This produces a set of scalars of weights. These are the neuron importance weights.
    αkc= 1ZijycAijk
  • The derived scalar weights are applied (linear combination) to the feature map. The result is passed through a Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) activation function.
    LGrad-CAMc=ReLUkαkcAk
  • The result is scaled and applied to the image, highlighting the focus of the neural network. As seen, a ReLU activation function is applied to the linear combination of maps, because it's only interested in the pixels or features that have a positive influence on the class score, yc .

Demonstration of Grad-CAM

A pair of cats and a pair of remote controls
Description - Figure 2A pair of cats and a pair of remote controls

Image consisting of two Egyptian cats lying down on a pink sofa with remote controls on the left-hand side of each cat.

Figure 2 is an image of two Egyptian cats and two remote controls. The image was derived from the Hugging Face's cat image dataset, using their Python library. The objective is to identify the items within the image using different pretrained deep learning models. A PyTorch package called the PyTorch-GradCAM is used. The Grad-CAM feature identifies aspects of the image that activate the feature map of the Egyptian cat class and the remote-control class. After following the PyTorch-GradCAM tutorial, the Grad-CAM results are replicated for different deep neural networks.

Grad-CAM results of a pretrained Resnet-50 architecture to classify the figure 2 image. This image was generated by applying Grad-CAM to figure 2 in a Jupyter Notebook.
Description - Figure 3Grad-CAM results of a pretrained Resnet-50 architecture to classify the figure 2 image. This image was generated by applying Grad-CAM to figure 2 in a Jupyter Notebook.

Heatmap images generated from a Resnet-50 architecture using Grad-CAM for the Egyptian cat class (left) and Remote-control class (right). The intensity of the red colour shows the regions that contribute the most to the model decision. There are few intense regions for the cat, while the remotes are almost fully captured, but not highly intense.

Figure 2 is parsed through a pretrained residual neural network (Resnet-50) as per the PyTorch-Grad-CAM tutorial. Figure 3 is the image generated using Grad-CAM. For the Egyptian cat class, the leg, stripes, and faces of the cats activated the feature map. For the remote controls, the buttons and profile are what activated the feature map. The top 5k predicted classes in order of logit, are remote control, tiger cat, Egyptian cat, tabby cat, and pillow. This model seems to be more confident the image contains remote controls and cats. Though less confident, the pillow category made the top five of the listed categories. This could be because the model was trained with cat-printed pillows.

Grad-CAM results of a pretrained shifted window transformer to classify figure 2. This image was generated by applying Grad-CAM to figure 2 in a Jupyter Notebook.
Description - Figure 4Grad-CAM results of a pretrained shifted window transformer to classify figure 2. This image was generated by applying Grad-CAM to figure 2 in a Jupyter Notebook.

Heatmap images generated from a shifted window transformer using Grad-CAM for the Egyptian cat class (left) and remote-control class (right). The intensity of the red colour shows the regions that contribute the most to the model's decision. The cats show more intense regions, while the remote controls are almost fully captured with high-intensity.

Like the Resnet-50 architecture, the same image is parsed through a pretrained shifted window transformer. Figure 4 shows the cats' fur, stripes, faces, and legs as activated regions in the feature map in respect to the Egyptian cat category. The same occurs in relation to the feature map in respect to the remote controls. The top 5k predicted classes, in order of logit, are tabby cat, tiger cat, domestic cat, and Egyptian cat. This model is more confident that cats are in this image than remote controls.

Grad-CAM results of a pretrained vision transformer architecture in classifying the image in figure 2 This image was generated by applying Grad-CAM to figure 2 in a Jupyter notebook.
Description - Figure 5Grad-CAM results of a pretrained vision transformer architecture in classifying the image in figure 2 This image was generated by applying Grad-CAM to figure 2 in a Jupyter notebook.

Heatmap images generated from a Vision transformer using Grad-CAM for the Egyptian cat class (left) and remote-control class (right). The intensity of the red colour shows the regions that contribute the most to the model decision. The cats are fully captured in high intensity. The remotes are also captured but not equivalent intensity. In addition, other regions of the images are highlighted despite not being part of either class.

As seen above, more regions of the feature map are activated, including sections of the image that didn't include cat features. The same occurs for regions of the feature map in respect to the remote-control class. The top 5k predicted classes, in order of logit, are Egyptian cat, tiger cat, tabby cat, remote control, and lynx.

The Grad-CAM results with the top 5k categories for different architectures can be used to favour a selection of the vision transformer (VIT) architecture for tasks related to identifying Egyptian cats and remote controls.

Conclusion

Some of the challenges in the field of AI includes increasing the trust of people in the developed models and understanding the rationale behind the decision making of these models during development. Visualizations tools like Grad-CAM provide insight into these rationales and aid in highlighting different failure modes of AI models for specific tasks. It can be used to identify errors in the models and improve their performance. On top of Grad-CAM, there are other visualization tools that have been developed such as Score-CAM, which performs even better in interpreting the decision-making process of deep neural networks. Though Grad-CAM will be selected over Score-CAM due it's simplicity and agnosticism to model architectures. The use of tools such as Grad-CAM, should be encouraged in visually explaining the reason behind the decisions of AI models.

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References

  • S. R. Ramprasaath, C. Michael, D. Abhishek, V. Ramakrishna, P. Devi and B. Dhruv, "Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization," in ICCV, IEEE Computer Society, 2017, pp. 618-626.
  • Z. Bolei, K. Aditya, L. Agata, O. Aude and T. Antonio, "Learning Deep Features for Discriminative Localization," CoRR, 2015.
  • J. Vincent, "Twitter taught Microsoft's AI chatbot to be racist in less than a day", in The Verge, 2016.
Date modified:

National Travel Survey: C.V.s for Person-Trips by Duration of Trip, Main Trip Purpose and Country or Region of Trip Destination – Q4 2022

National Travel Survey: C.V.s for Person-Trips by Duration of Trip, Main Trip Purpose and Country or Region of Trip Destination – Q4 2022
Table summary
This table displays the results of C.V.s for Person-Trips by Duration of Trip, Main Trip Purpose and Country or Region of Trip Destination. The information is grouped by Duration of trip (appearing as row headers), Main Trip Purpose, Country or Region of Trip Destination (Total, Canada, United States, Overseas) calculated using Person-Trips in Thousands (× 1,000) and C.V. as a units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Duration of Trip Main Trip Purpose Country or Region of Trip Destination
Total Canada United States Overseas
Person-Trips (x 1,000) C.V. Person-Trips (x 1,000) C.V. Person-Trips (x 1,000) C.V. Person-Trips (x 1,000) C.V.
Total Duration Total Main Trip Purpose 67,564 A 60,934 A 5,217 A 1,413 A
Holiday, leisure or recreation 21,112 A 17,744 A 2,494 B 874 A
Visit friends or relatives 28,448 A 26,908 A 1,137 B 403 B
Personal conference, convention or trade show 1,174 C 1,047 C 124 D 3 E
Shopping, non-routine 4,872 B 4,140 B 731 B 2 E
Other personal reasons 5,519 B 5,326 B 157 C 36 D
Business conference, convention or trade show 1,711 B 1,363 B 295 C 53 C
Other business 4,727 B 4,405 B 278 C 44 C
Same-Day Total Main Trip Purpose 43,435 A 41,626 A 1,809 B ..  
Holiday, leisure or recreation 11,991 A 11,400 B 591 C ..  
Visit friends or relatives 17,946 A 17,632 A 314 C ..  
Personal conference, convention or trade show 817 C 781 C 36 E ..  
Shopping, non-routine 4,512 B 3,869 B 643 B ..  
Other personal reasons 4,326 B 4,264 B 62 D ..  
Business conference, convention or trade show 456 C 436 C 21 E ..  
Other business 3,387 B 3,244 B 143 E ..  
Overnight Total Main Trip Purpose 24,129 A 19,308 A 3,408 A 1,413 A
Holiday, leisure or recreation 9,121 A 6,344 A 1,904 A 874 A
Visit friends or relatives 10,502 A 9,276 A 823 B 403 B
Personal conference, convention or trade show 357 C 266 C 88 D 3 E
Shopping, non-routine 360 C 271 C 88 C 2 E
Other personal reasons 1,193 B 1,062 B 95 C 36 D
Business conference, convention or trade show 1,255 B 928 B 275 C 53 C
Other business 1,340 B 1,161 B 135 C 44 C
..
data not available

Estimates contained in this table have been assigned a letter to indicate their coefficient of variation (c.v.) (expressed as a percentage). The letter grades represent the following coefficients of variation:

A
c.v. between or equal to 0.00% and 5.00% and means Excellent
B
c.v. between or equal to 5.01% and 15.00% and means Very good.
C
c.v. between or equal to 15.01% and 25.00% and means Good.
D
c.v. between or equal to 25.01% and 35.00% and means Acceptable.
E
c.v. greater than 35.00% and means Use with caution.

Monthly Survey of Food Services and Drinking Places: CVs for Total Sales by Geography – March 2023

Monthly Survey of Food Services and Drinking Places: CVs for Total Sales by Geography - March 2023
Table summary
This table displays the results of CVs for Total sales by Geography. The information is grouped by Geography (appearing as row headers). Month and percentage (appearing as column headers).
Geography Month
202203 202204 202205 202206 202207 202208 202209 202210 202211 202212 202301 202302 202303
percentage
Canada 0.87 0.45 0.51 0.66 0.49 0.14 0.13 0.17 0.24 0.88 0.32 0.40 0.29
Newfoundland and Labrador 1.20 1.52 1.66 0.53 0.50 0.47 0.49 0.73 0.49 0.93 2.43 0.89 1.19
Prince Edward Island 9.73 15.01 6.85 15.97 9.23 5.27 3.04 8.45 8.22 3.45 10.49 14.28 2.20
Nova Scotia 0.50 0.98 1.16 1.79 3.37 0.43 0.40 0.37 0.43 16.87 0.83 0.97 0.84
New Brunswick 0.55 1.41 1.26 0.67 0.53 0.52 0.50 0.56 0.73 12.18 1.21 1.95 1.18
Quebec 1.95 0.53 1.73 1.55 0.97 0.18 0.28 0.26 0.19 1.73 0.67 0.96 0.83
Ontario 1.19 0.80 0.74 1.30 0.95 0.25 0.25 0.21 0.53 0.73 0.67 0.85 0.51
Manitoba 0.54 0.80 0.97 0.68 3.49 0.48 0.40 0.37 0.58 9.72 0.78 0.91 1.48
Saskatchewan 1.18 1.84 5.77 6.45 4.85 1.30 0.73 1.31 1.44 7.51 0.62 1.47 1.28
Alberta 2.01 0.68 0.57 1.45 0.91 0.39 0.30 0.33 0.38 1.56 0.40 0.49 0.47
British Columbia 3.25 1.55 0.97 0.64 0.91 0.28 0.21 0.66 0.33 2.77 0.44 0.47 0.50
Yukon Territory 2.20 2.07 23.00 3.32 2.54 2.09 2.07 2.34 2.20 2.50 41.12 3.45 33.49
Northwest Territories 1.77 3.19 29.08 3.20 2.74 2.38 2.05 2.00 2.09 2.56 6.03 2.73 40.91
Nunavut 0.76 0.69 73.56 1.55 1.52 1.30 2.35 2.85 101.77 43.21 2.83 2.40 117.22

Wholesale Trade Survey (monthly): CVs for total sales by geography - March 2023

Wholesale Trade Survey (monthly): CVs for total sales by geography - March 2023
Geography Month
202203 202204 202205 202206 202207 202208 202209 202210 202211 202212 202301 202302 202303
percentage
Canada 0.6 0.8 0.8 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.5
Newfoundland and Labrador 1.5 1.9 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.3 0.3
Prince Edward Island 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Nova Scotia 2.5 2.7 3.5 1.6 4.7 2.5 1.9 2.9 1.8 4.9 4.4 2.0 3.8
New Brunswick 1.4 2.9 1.3 1.2 2.1 3.0 1.7 1.3 2.6 2.4 1.8 1.9 1.4
Quebec 1.4 2.5 1.9 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.7 1.4 1.5 2.1 1.6 1.4 1.4
Ontario 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.1 1.1 0.9 1.0 0.9 0.9 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.1
Manitoba 0.6 0.8 1.8 1.7 1.2 1.0 1.5 2.1 1.4 1.8 0.8 0.7 0.5
Saskatchewan 0.4 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.6 1.1 1.2 0.5 0.7 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.6
Alberta 0.8 1.8 1.2 1.2 1.4 1.4 0.8 1.4 1.3 1.1 1.4 0.9 0.4
British Columbia 1.6 1.4 1.6 2.1 1.9 1.6 1.8 2.6 1.5 1.4 1.5 1.8 1.7
Yukon Territory 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Northwest Territories 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Nunavut 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0