Gross Domestic Product by Industry - Provincial and Territorial (Annual)

Gross Domestic Product by Industry - Provincial and Territorial (Annual)
Summary of changes
Other reference periods
Related products

Detailed information for 2024

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Annual

Record number:

1303

The purpose of this statistical program is to provide information for current economic analysis. It provides a measure of economic production at the provincial and territorial level of Canada from an industry point of view.

Data release - May 1, 2025; November 6, 2025 (Provincial and territorial economic accounts)

Description

The primary mandate of this statistical program is to compile and disseminate current measures of gross value added (GVA) by industry at the provincial and territorial level, also referred to as Provincial and Territorial Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at basic prices by industry (PTGDP). GDP at basic prices is the sum of wages and salaries, employers' social contributions, gross mixed income, gross operating surplus, and taxes less subsidies on production other than taxes and subsidies on products.

The growth rates of GDP provide an indication of how well an industry or an economy is doing. The GDP of an industry equals output by the industry minus the value of its intermediate consumption of goods and services. Value added is a measure of how much an industry increases the value of its output over and above the value of its intermediate inputs. GDP at basic prices for the economy as a whole is the sum of the values added by all resident institutional units in Canada.

PTGDP is compiled for 174 detail-level industries, using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Canada 2022 Version 1.0 as a basis. An additional 73 aggregates are also compiled to provide a variety of levels of information useful for analysis of industrial economic performance.

The PTGDP program provides an additional measure of the economy that supplements the income- and expenditure-based GDP estimates, and helps policymakers monitor the evolution of the provincial and territorial economies, formulate policies to guide this evolution, and decide on the timing of their implementation.

Statistical activity

The Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts provides a conceptually integrated framework of statistics for studying the state and behaviour of the Canadian economy. The accounts are centered on the measurement of activities associated with the production and consumption of goods and services, the income generated through that production, the supporting financial transactions, and the resulting wealth positions.

Subjects

  • Economic accounts
  • Gross domestic product
  • Input-output accounts

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population is all resident institutional units involved in the economic activity of producing goods and services.

The observed population consists of all establishments in Canada. The establishment is the level at which the accounting data required to measure production are available. The establishment, as a statistical unit, is defined as the most homogeneous unit of production for which a household, business or government maintains accounting records from which it is possible to assemble all the data elements required to compile the full structure of production (total sales or shipments, and inventories), the cost of materials and services, and labour and capital used in production.

Instrument design

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Sampling

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Data sources

Data are extracted from administrative files and derived from Statistics Canada surveys and/or other sources.

GDP by industry measures rely heavily on a wealth of information from various areas of Statistics Canada. A large amount of information from various divisions within the agency, along with other data, is compiled, integrated and analyzed as part of the process of arriving at estimates of PTGDP.

For example, data from the Monthly Survey of Manufacturing is used for most manufacturing industries. Data from the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours is used for many service industries.

Error detection

Data at the detailed industry level, the lowest level at which PTGDP estimates are directly compiled, are checked for significant year-to-year changes and potential source data issues. They are also analyzed for time series consistency, links to current economic events, and coherence with other related economic indicators.

Imputation

Not applicable.

Estimation

Estimates of PTGDP are published in volume terms; that is, they measure the economic growth of industries with the effect of price variations removed. For all but the most recent two or three years, the PTGDP estimates are derived from the supply and use tables (SUTs), using the double deflation approach.

For the post-SUTs years, estimates of PTGDP are projections that are based on proxy indicators such as output or employment. GDP growth rates for industry aggregations and for the total economy are calculated by weighting individual industry growth rates with GDP by industry estimates in current prices. These are obtained from the most recent SUTs, with adjustments from available source data for the most recent year.

Quality evaluation

Data at the detailed industry level are analyzed by province and territory for time series consistency, links to current economic events, source data issues, and coherence with other related economic indicators. As well, the growth rates of total PTGDP by province and territory are reconciled with the growth rates of total income- and expenditure-based GDP (record number 1902). https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=1902

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

PTGDP estimates are derived from the SUTs, which contain no suppressions for confidentiality. It has been determined that the distance between respondent information obtained from business surveys and administrative data, the aggregated structure and the conceptual and statistical measurement framework underlying the compilation of the SUTs is sufficiently large such that they mask the information provided by respondents and negate the need for data suppressions.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

Preliminary estimates are released in the spring following the end of the reference period and revised in the fall of the same year. The fall release also comprises revisions to the three previous years, mainly due to the incorporation of the most recent SUTs and due to source data updates. Estimates are not normally revised again except when historical revisions are carried out, which may incorporate new methodologies, data sources, concepts, or classifications.

Seasonal adjustment is not necessary given that PTGDP estimates are only compiled on an annual basis.

Data accuracy

Estimates of PTGDP are benchmarked to the SUTs (record number 1401) https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb_internal/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=1401&dis=1, which are only available almost three years after the end of a reference year. In the post-SUTs years, the quality of the projected PTGDP estimates are lower than those from the SUTs.

In general, the higher the level of aggregation, the more robust are the estimates. There is also a trade-off between timeliness and accuracy. As more robust data become available, estimates are updated and become more accurate with different vintages of publication. The data is deemed most robust when the benchmark SUTs are available.

Although, PTGDP data quality may not be as high as when the data from SUTs are available, the quality is deemed robust for GDP projections given the data sources available at the time the PTGDP projections are estimated.

In general, weaknesses in source data may arise due to under coverage or inappropriate concepts and definitions.

Under coverage is normally corrected by inflating reported data by a factor that allows the data to represent the universe concerned.

The data used in the derivation of PTGDP are quite varied in coverage, details, definitions and concepts and often these factors do not coincide with those required. They must be thoroughly examined and adjusted for consistency and coverage using carefully designed estimating procedures.

It is not possible to calculate a direct measure of the margin of error in the GDP estimates due to the integrative nature of GDP estimation, which depends on various data sources and methods. The reliability of data sources used to estimate PTGDP varies and depends on factors such as sample size, response rates, and collection method, resulting in different coefficients of variation. All such information is taken under consideration when evaluating data quality while making subject matter based expert judgment for PTGDP projections.

In addition, as the PTGDP estimates are benchmarked to the volumes derived from the SUTs, the quality of these volume estimates has a direct influence on the quality of the PTGDP projections in post-SUT periods.

Documentation

Date modified: