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Minister’s Portfolio Message

As Minister of Industry, I am committed to the long-term competitiveness and prosperity of our country. Canada has many economic advantages upon which we must continue to build if we are to set the right conditions for our long-term success. With this in mind, Industry Canada and its Portfolio partners are striving toward the development of an innovative economy with robust sectors and an efficient and competitive marketplace.

Our priorities remain aligned with Advantage Canada, the government’s long-term economic plan. Here, we set out clear objectives, including the reduction of taxes, the encouragement of entrepreneurship, and the development of a knowledge-based economy.

In the 2009–2010 Report on Plans and Priorities, we recognize that as we look to the year ahead we are entering a period of continued global economic uncertainty, one that demands clear and strategic action on the part of the government to ensure we accomplish the long-term goals we have set for ourselves. Our departmental priorities and initiatives will be guided by a balanced consideration of the demands of the global economic situation and our long-term vision for Canada’s growth and prosperity.

In Budget 2009 — Canada’s Economic Action Plan, the government has developed a clear and comprehensive response to the slowdown in the global economy, which is in keeping with the continuing objectives of Advantage Canada. The economic action plan addresses short-term realities, while setting in place the conditions to strengthen Canada’s economy for generations to come.

Industry Canada and its Portfolio partners are at the heart of the government’s strategy to stimulate the Canadian economy. We are taking steps to improve the competitiveness of Canada’s traditional economy by providing short-term support for key sectors such as the auto industry. We are ensuring that all regions of Canada prosper by supporting economic diversification. We are fostering small businesses by improving access to credit and encouraging growth through tax reductions and incentives. We are supporting measures to develop a highly skilled workforce through such means as expanding the Canada Graduate Scholarships program. At this time of intense international competition for the world’s best and brightest, government support is helping to attract and retain these individuals in Canada. We are positioning Canada as a leader in the global knowledge economy.

In the ongoing pursuit of our mandate, we will continue to focus on innovation as a means to develop a globally competitive economy. Our ultimate goal is to help Canadians continue to enjoy a quality of life that is envied throughout the world.

It is my pleasure to present this year’s Report on Plans and Priorities for Industry Canada and its Portfolio partners, which will outline in greater detail the priorities and pursuits in which we will be engaged in the year to come.

Tony Clement
Minister of Industry

Chief Statistician’s Message

Canadians need access to a trusted source of information about their country. Timely, accurate and relevant statistics and analysis are even more important in periods of economic stress when Canadians and their governments must make difficult decisions. Statistics Canada is totally committed to providing the best possible data.

Meeting this commitment means information evolving with the needs of the citizens. Next year, among other things, Statistics Canada will:

• introduce new measures for the services industries that now dominate the Canadian economy, and develop new information and tools to better understand strategies and decision making at the level of the individual firm;
• implement updated international standards to improve data quality and international comparisons;
• modernize key processes and computer systems to protect and enhance the quality of the information it produces, and to allow Canadians involved in its surveys the option of responding by Internet; and,
• build and test solid operational foundations for the Censuses of Population and Agriculture that will be conducted in 2011.

I invite readers to learn more about these and other initiatives in this report on Statistics Canada’s plans and priorities for the next three years. I also invite readers to benefit from the work of their national statistical agency by monitoring the results of our programs and analyses on our Web site (www.statcan.gc.ca).

The original version was signed by Munir A. Sheikh, Chief Statistician of Canada.

Section I Agency Overview

1.1 Summary Information

Raison d’être

Statistics Canada produces statistical data to help Canadians better understand their country—its population, resources, economy, society and culture.

Statistical information is crucial: it enables Canadians to make informed decisions and governments at all levels to develop appropriate policies. Among other things, statistical information is used to analyse economic performance, develop fiscal, monetary and foreign exchange policies, shape international trade negotiations, assess the cost-effectiveness of health care and education programs, monitor the justice system’s effectiveness and efficiency, select sites for schools and public transportation, and develop programs such as day care and subsidized housing.

Statistics Canada is committed to ensuring that its data are of the highest quality—in particular, that they are relevant, accurate, available promptly, accessible, easily interpreted and coherent. The Agency follows the highest technical standards in collecting information, and works neutrally and objectively, without interference or influence from outside parties. Statistics Canada also highly values the confidentiality of the information it collects, and the privacy of those who provide that information.

Responsibilities and Strategic Outcome

Statistics Canada's mandate derives primarily from the Statistics Act. The Act requires that the Agency collect, compile, analyse and publish statistical information on the economic, social and general conditions of the country and its citizens. The Act also requires that Statistics Canada co-ordinate the national statistical system, specifically to avoid duplication in the information collected by government. To this end, the Chief Statistician may enter into joint data-collection or -sharing agreements with provincial and territorial statistical agencies, as well as with federal, provincial and territorial government departments, subject to confidentiality guarantees for identifiable statistical information.

The Statistics Act specifically requires Statistics Canada to conduct a Census of Population and a Census of Agriculture every five years. The Act also gives the Agency substantial powers to request information for statistical purposes through surveys of Canadian businesses and households. By default, response to Statistics Canada’s surveys is mandatory under the Act; refusal to participate is subject to legal penalties. The Act includes provisions to make participation in data collection voluntary: Statistics Canada has done so generally with household data collection other than the Census of Population and the Labour Force Survey—the latter produces key economic data. The Census of Agriculture and all other surveys of businesses, including surveys of agricultural businesses, are mandatory.

Statistics Canada can also, by law, access all administrative records, including personal and business tax data, customs declarations, and birth and death records. Such records are critical sources of statistical information, which enable the Agency to reduce reporting burden on business and individual respondents. Statistics Canada is considered a leader among the world’s statistical agencies in reducing reporting burden by using administrative data.

These mechanisms help Statistics Canada achieve its long-standing strategic outcome, which is to ensure Canadians have access to objective, high-quality, non-partisan statistics, statistical products, services and analyses on Canada's economy and society that fulfill legal requirements, are relevant to policy formulation and decision makers, and are responsive to emerging issues.

1.2 Planning Summary

Agency Priorities for 2009/2010

To ensure the Agency’s continued relevance and efficiency, Statistics Canada has established 12 priorities for the coming year, as part of a multi-year plan:

• An historical revision of the Canadian National Accounts to bring them in line with updated international standards.
• A redesign of the Balance of Payments (Phase III) to update surveys of international financial transactions to meet revised international standards.
• Introduction of a General Business Panel Survey and an Integrated Business Database to track business strategies and link them with businesses’ performance over time.
• Development of Services Producer Price Indexes for the business services sector for better measurement of real output and productivity change. (This sector accounts for nearly 40% of gross domestic product.)
• Next steps of the Canadian Health Measures Survey to collect key health information—via direct physical measurement—and to create national baseline health data.
• A redesign of household surveys to address challenges to the household survey program, particularly rising costs, declining response rates, changing user needs and a need for flexible options for respondents.
• Development of a new Crime Severity Index that takes into account the volume of police-reported crime and the seriousness of each crime.
• Preparation for the 2011 Census of Population, including running a Census Test in May 2009.
• Preparation for the 2011 Census of Agriculture, including participation in the May 2009 Census Test.
• Continuation of the Collection Business Architecture initiative to modernize Statistics Canada’s data-collection processes.
• Implementing initiatives to support Public Service Renewal in accordance with the annual plan of the Clerk of the Privy Council.
• Strengthening the Agency’s internal audit function in accordance with Treasury Board policy.

Program Activity Architecture

Under its legislation, Statistics Canada has authority to collect and compile information on a wide array of subjects to meet the needs of its many stakeholders. Its statistical program is correspondingly wide-ranging.

To achieve its objectives, the Agency allocates the resources entrusted to it in accordance with its Program Activity Architecture. This framework of program activities and sub-activities reflects Government of Canada standards for transparent and accountable reporting. It was established by Statistics Canada, in conjunction with Treasury Board.

Statistics Canada’s activities are divided into three main program activities based on subject matter—Economic Statistics, Social Statistics, and Census, Demography and Aboriginal Statistics. A fourth program activity covers internal services. Within these groupings are the sub-activities, which correspond to the branch of the Agency’s organizational structure. Within the sub-activities groupings are a third level of activities, which correspond to the Agency’s divisions. The detailed Program Activity Architecture is shown below:

Figure 1 Program Activity Architecture

Financial and Human Resources

Statistics Canada's statistical program is funded from two sources: direct parliamentary appropriations and cost-recovery activities. In recent years, the Agency’s ‘respendable’ cost-recovery revenues—revenues the Agency is authorized to spend on the activity that generated them—have added more than $100 million to its total resources. A large portion of these respendable revenues are from federal departments to fund specific statistical projects. Statistics Canada assumes that cost-recovery revenues will remain in the same vicinity each year for the foreseeable future.

The bulk of Statistics Canada's resources come, of course, from direct parliamentary appropriations. The total planned spending and total planned human resources for the next three fiscal years are summarized in the following tables.

Financial Resources	2009/2010	2010/2011	2011/2012
($ thousands)	454,391	388,792	403,852

Human Resources	2009/2010	2010/2011	2011/2012
Full-time Equivalents	5,567	5,001	5,138

Note: Statistics Canada is empowered under the Statistics Act to directly hire temporary staff as interviewers and enumerators for its data-collection activities. Fluctuations in financial and human resources are primarily due to the Census, for which the peak period corresponds to the year in which the Census is conducted. Temporary staff are excluded from the table of full-time equivalents.

Both tables show the year-to-year variability in Statistics Canada’s resources, the result of the cyclical activity supporting the Census of Population and the Census of Agriculture. Funding typically peaks in the fiscal year in which the census is conducted.

The chart below shows funding by program activity: 66% of funding for 2009/2010 is accounted for by the Economic Statistics and Social Statistics program activities. The Census share is 17%, reflecting the low point in the census cycle.

Figure 2 Allocation of Funding by Program Activity, 2009/2010

The longer-term context is illustrated in the figure below, which shows Statistics Canada’s spending trend from 2005/2006 to 2011/2012.

Figure 3 Spending Trend, 2005/2006 to 2011/2012

Note: Fiscal years 2006/2007 and 2011/2012 are periods of peak Census expenditure. The spending trend shown here reflects approved expenditures. For the 2011 Census of Agriculture, funding has been approved through 2013/2014. For the 2011 Census of Population, it has been approved through 2009/2010.

Spending peaked in 2006/2007, when the 2006 Censuses of Population and Agriculture were conducted. It fell from 2007/2008 through to 2009/2010, as these activities wound down. Funding also decreased due to the Strategic Program Review and the 2007 Efficiency Savings. The sunsetting of several small initiatives also contributed to the fall in funding.

Funding has not been secured beyond 2009/2010 for the 2011 Census of Population. The rising funding in 2011/2012 reflects preparation for the 2011 Census of Population and Census of Agriculture. When full census funding has been secured, Statistics Canada expects spending in 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 to reach magnitudes similar to the equivalent point in the previous census cycle.

Planning Summary Tables

Total planned spending for each program activity, for each of the next three fiscal years, as well as expected results, are detailed below.

Table 1Planning Summary Table—Planned Spending and Expected Results

Program Activity	Expected Results	Forecast Spending ($ thousands)	Planned Spending ($ thousands)			Alignment to Government of Canada Outcomes
		2008/2009	2009/2010	2010/2011	2011/2012
Economic Statistics	Statistics produced by Statistics Canada are available through a wide range of easily accessible media formats and venues. Canadians are aware of the availability of these statistics and of their high quality, and of the professionalism and non-partisanship of Statistics Canada.	204,033	190,068	181,428	185,586	Statistics Canada program activities are linked to the Government Affairs Government of Canada Outcome Area.
Social Statistics		197,770	192,456	175,886	178,482
Census, Demography and Aboriginal Statistics		107,162	108,108	50,000	58,533
Internal Services	…	83,777	83,758	81,477	81,251	…
Budgetary Main Estimates (Gross)	…	592,742	574,391	488,792	503,852	…
Less: Respendable Revenue	…	130,000	120,000	100,000	100,000	…
Total Main Estimates	…	462,742	454,391	388,792	403,852	…
Adjustments1	…	32,747	0	0	0	…
Total Planned Spending	…	495,489	454,391	388,792	403,852	…
… not applicable 1. Adjustments are to accommodate approvals obtained since the release of the Main Estimates. Adjustments include Budget initiatives, Supplementary Estimates, etc. Note: Totals may differ within and between tables due to the rounding of amounts.

Performance indicators and targets are shown in the table below. These indicators result from an initiative, undertaken jointly with Treasury Board, to develop objective, empirical measures of the Agency’s success in meeting its strategic outcome. This is a challenging undertaking, given the diversity of Statistics Canada’s products and the high level of service provided by Agency staff. Trusted statistical information that is widely accessible is a complex product. The indicators and targets shown below reflect this complexity. By these and any other measures, the Agency will meet its strategic outcome.

Table 2Planning Summary Table—Performance Indicators and Targets

Performance Indicators	Targets
Use of statistical data and products by users (measured by Internet downloads, page views and other readership measures)	The Agency monitors the volume of data and other statistical products used by clients, and the readership of its flagship publications such as The Daily, Canadian Social Trends, Canadian Economic Observer, Perspectives on Labour and Income, Health Reports and the Canada Year Book. Dissemination volumes are analysed compared with historical baselines to ensure enhanced access by Canadians both globally and for individual products.
Citations of Statistics Canada statistical and analytical products (in major media, learned journals and other outlets)	The frequency of references to the Agency’s statistical data and analytical products indicate access by clients to relevant and trusted information. References are analysed and compared to a baseline year to ensure that a high degree of client interest and access continues.
Results of annual client satisfaction surveys	Client satisfaction surveys are conducted and ratings are monitored at the program and corporate levels to ensure that goals supporting the Agency’s Strategic Outcome are reached. The target is an average overall score of 4.0 on a scale of 0 to 5.0.
Results of ad hoc evaluations of the Agency by public and private institutions (such as internal audits, external audits, external evaluations and international appraisals)	To realize consistently high ratings and findings year over year.

Voted and Statutory Items

The table below shows: how Parliament has approved Statistics Canada resources; the changes in the resources derived from supplementary estimates and other authorities; and how funds were spent.

Table 3Voted and Statutory Items

Vote number or Statutory Item	Truncated Vote or Statutory Wording	2008/2009 Main Estimates1 ($ thousands)	2009/2010 Main Estimates1 ($ thousands)
95	Program expenditures	398,872	391,909
Statutory	Contributions to employee benefit plans	63,870	62,481
Total		462,742	454,391
1. Main Estimates amounts are presented net of respendable revenue. Note: Totals may differ within and between tables due to the rounding of amounts.

How Statistics Canada Meets Its Objectives

Statistics Canada has a well-developed, highly integrated planning system designed to track the evolving information needs of Canadians and enable the Agency to efficiently respond to those needs with products and services of high quality. Senior management provides strategic direction and continuing support to ensure Statistics Canada delivers its strategic outcomes.

The planning system enables the Agency to:

• identify Canadians’ emerging information needs, and determine their priority
• select new statistical program initiatives to best meet those needs
• generate efficiencies in information gathering, processing and dissemination
• integrate planning of long-term business operations with human resource and financial requirements
• continually assess each statistical program’s performance and risks and, where appropriate, to improve those programs.

These planning activities are carried out through several organizational components and processes.

Statistics Canada's stakeholder network: Crucial to Statistics Canada's success, the stakeholder network keeps the Agency abreast of evolving information needs and opportunities. Statistics Canada convenes several professional advisory committees in various program areas on program content as well as on products and services. The National Statistics Council sits at the summit of the advisory committee system. Statistics Canada consults with provincial and territorial governments through the Federal–Provincial–Territorial Consultative Council on Statistical Policy and various specialized committees under its aegis. Numerous bilateral committees link Statistics Canada to federal departments and agencies. The Agency also participates in numerous international standards-setting bodies. Information from those bodies informs management judgments on revising the Agency’s programs. The National Statistical Council provides high-level policy guidance to the statistical system and to the Agency’s Policy Committee; the council can exercise much influence on the Agency’s statistical program and its future directions.

Policy Committee: This committee heads the planning process. The top executive governance body at Statistics Canada, with final decision-making powers, it is headed by the Chief Statistician of Canada (the deputy head of the Agency) and seven Assistant Chief Statisticians (the assistant deputy ministers). The committee deals with all major issues affecting the Agency: it provides broad direction for the organization, approves specific types of transactions reserved for its consideration, and acts as the court of final resort for all decisions taken in the management of the Agency.

Management Committee Structure: Several management committees, chaired by assistant chief statisticians, deal with every important aspect of managing the Agency, providing open and candid discussion of management issues, building common understanding, and achieving consensus on how to deal with these issues and on policy recommendations to be made to the Policy Committee. These committees ensure that statistical business needs drive management processes.

Strategic Planning Cycle: This annual cycle, with a three- to five-year planning horizon, provides the framework for deciding what changes will be made to the Agency’s statistical program from one year to the next. It involves all managers and synthesizes information on user needs, program weaknesses and information gaps. This transparent process is based on consensus-building across the organization.

Features of this cycle that are important in managing and in planning the Agency’s statistical program operations are:

• an annual strategic planning conference to identify major corporate priorities to be adhered to in developing long-term planning proposals in the current planning round
• a requirement for program managers to identify their lowest priority program activities for possible reduction or cancellation and to propose efficiencies
• an invitation to program managers to submit new initiatives that would respond to user needs, especially in areas identified as corporate priorities
• a review and screening of long-term planning proposals by senior management review groups, called “syndicates”, which are headed by assistant chief statisticians
• an independent review of major systems proposals to ensure that they follow appropriate project management and design principles
• a senior management meeting of directors general and above to review and critique all proposals presented by syndicates
• Policy Committee decisions on all proposals based on their relevance to corporate priorities, the results of previous program reviews and funding available.

Human resources and business planning are integrated. At the outset, staff from the Human Resources Branch are involved in the planning cycle to identify the resource implications of all planning proposals put forth to ensure that Policy Committee decisions on them can be taken, based on all their resource requirements, costs and risks.

Program Evaluation Cycle: Every two years, each program is required to produce a report documenting its performance and laying out its future direction and proposals for change.

Every fourth year, each program supplements its biennial report with a more strategic review of its relevance and direction, including the results of consultations with its clients. These quadrennial reports may also offer planning proposals to respond to identified program weaknesses. The Policy Committee reviews these quadrennial reports. It may approve putting forward planning proposals identified in these reports for funding consideration in the planning cycle. A risk assessment is performed as part of the quadrennial evaluation; it follows the requirements of Statistics Canada’s Corporate Risk Framework (see section below on this), and focuses on the demand for and the supply of statistical capacity.

Risk Analysis and the Plans and Priorities for 2009/2010

Statistics Canada, like other organizations, must manage risk in an uncertain world. For a statistical agency, the key risks are security of data supply, usefulness of outputs and the challenges of running a large and complex organization. These three sources of risk are at the centre of the Agency’s Corporate Risk Framework.

At Statistics Canada, risk management is operationalized through several processes: the main one is internal program evaluation. In preparing quadrennial program reviews, program managers evaluate their own risk profile—assessing the likelihood and the potential impact of an unwanted event—and outline their plans to mitigate such risk. Risk management is also operationalized by consulting with advisory committees, tracking market feedback, and other central agencies conducting internal audits and reviews.

One of the Agency’s challenges is ensuring that its output continues to be relevant and useful. Many of the plans and priorities in 2009/2010 are aimed at improving the relevance of the national statistical program by producing new kinds of statistics policy makers need concerning the economy, the environment, health and the administration of justice, all current government priorities. There is also new investment for the 2011 Census of Population and the Census of Agriculture, both fundamental sources of statistical information for a wide variety of users across the country. The relevance of the national statistical program will be further enhanced by the release of additional statistics on the Aboriginal population.

Other program priorities address the usefulness of the Agency’s outputs. Quality is an overriding concern for Statistics Canada; the credibility and usefulness of its output depends on the actual and perceived quality of its statistics. To this end, new investments are being made to extend the coverage of producer price indexes in service industries, which is intended to improve the measurement of real output and productivity in the Canadian economy. As well, national accounting and balance of payments data are being revised to reflect new international standards. In addition, Statistics Canada has completed a comprehensive review of the quality assurance practices for nine of its most critical statistical programs and an exercise on sensitization on quality assurance to highlight areas in programs that may be exposed to quality risks. This quality assurance process has entered the next phase, namely institutionalizing the quality review at the Agency.

Other priorities address security of supply and the operation of the corporation. Investments in infrastructure are being made to modernize the collection process, to address the challenge of changing demographics in Statistics Canada’s own workforce, and to expand the internal audit function to better ensure the continued quality of Agency services.

Benefits for Canadians

Statistics Canada is meeting its strategic outcome. According to a 2007 public opinion survey conducted for the Agency by Environics Research Group:

• Almost 80% of all adults in Canada hold a positive impression of Statistics Canada, and feel that it contributes to the quality of life in Canada.
• Of Canadians who accessed the Internet, 1 in 4 claimed to have visited the Statistics Canada website at least once in the previous 12 months—a very large proportion.
• About 80% of those who visited the website indicated they found the information they sought.

In addition, Statistics Canada data are widely cited and used:

• 81% of the 311 Globe and Mail issues published within the past year contained one or more articles referencing Statistics Canada.
• 5.3 million Google pages referenced Statistics Canada (excluding Statistics Canada's own site).
• There were 19.8 million visits to Statistics Canada's website in 2007/2008
• There were over 2 million users of The Daily, the Agency’s daily information release. The Daily contains an average of five data releases per issue and is distributed some 245 times a year.
• There were 22 explicit references to Statistics Canada in the 2008 Federal Budget; 13 references in the Ontario Budget, and 9 in the British Columbia Budget.
• There were 15,500 subscribers to The Daily or its components.
• 576 publications on the C. D Howe Institute website contain one or more references to Statistics Canada.
• 230 pages on the Institute for Research on Public Policy website refer to Statistics Canada.
• Significant amounts of Statistics Canada data are republished by the United Nations, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Labour Organization, and the International Monetary Fund.
• 3,608 blog posts cite “Statistics Canada/Statistique Canada,” according to Technorati.

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