Macroeconomic Data Explorer

About this explorer and how to use it

This tool shows the economy of Canada, its ten provinces and three territories over the long run: GDP (nominal, real and CPI-adjusted), GDP per person and per worker, population, employment, consumer prices and inflation. National series begin in and most provincial series in the 1920s, and the most recent data are for , depending on the variable. It opens on CPI-adjusted GDP per person, in dollars, for Canada and its four largest provinces.

To use it, pick regions and a variable, then choose how to measure it: as published, as an annual per cent change, as an index, or relative to Canada. Over time tracks it across years; Across regions ranks the provinces in a single year, or by their growth between two years; Two variables plots one variable against another. Switch to Variables to compare several indicators for one region. Every chart and table can be downloaded, as can the full database. Sources, definitions and estimated years are in the Notes.

Two kinds of inflation-adjusted GDP. Real GDP is Statistics Canada's measure of the volume of production, in chained 2017 dollars (from 1981 for provinces). CPI-adjusted GDP is nominal GDP deflated by consumer prices: what an economy's output could buy. It reaches further back and suits comparisons of income across provinces, but it is not the real GDP that Statistics Canada reports. More on the difference.

Compare

Regions

Variable

Measure

Base year (= 100)

Years

Chart years

From

Headline numbers

Year

Compare with

Show growth between the two yearsEach province's average annual growth from the comparison year to the selected year, instead of its level. Include territoriesAdd Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Their series are much shorter. Logarithmic scaleEqual vertical distances show equal per cent changes, which makes long-run growth easier to compare. Shade estimated yearsGrey bands mark years that are imputed or not strictly comparable, such as provincial GDP before 1950.

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What the data are

The Finances of the Nation macroeconomic database brings together annual GDP, population, employment and consumer prices for Canada, each province and each territory. Statistics Canada's current tables only go back a few decades, so older official and academic sources are spliced on to them. Each older series is scaled to match the newer one where they meet, so year-to-year changes in the older source are preserved and levels are consistent with the latest Statistics Canada data. National series begin in ; most provincial series begin in 1926 (1949 for Newfoundland and Labrador), and the territories' in the 1970s or later. Coverage for each variable is in the table below.

The database is maintained on GitHub and is the source of the GDP, population and price figures used to normalize other Finances of the Nation data.

Variables

Real GDP and CPI-adjusted GDP

The explorer offers two ways of taking inflation out of GDP. They answer different questions, and they can tell quite different stories, especially for resource-producing provinces.

Real GDP (chained 2017 dollars) is Statistics Canada's measure of the volume of goods and services an economy produces. Output is valued at the prices of the goods themselves, so a higher price for oil does not raise real GDP; only producing more does. It is the measure behind official growth rates, and the one to use for growth in output or productivity over time.
CPI-adjusted GDP ( dollars) is nominal GDP divided by the national consumer price index. It measures the purchasing power of the income an economy generates: what its output could buy in consumer goods and services. When the prices of what a province produces rise relative to the prices of what people buy, as oil prices did for Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador in the 2000s, CPI-adjusted GDP grows faster than real GDP; when those prices fall, it falls faster. Because every region is deflated by the same national index, levels can be compared across provinces in any year. Statistics Canada's long-run provincial data measure “real gross domestic income” in the same spirit, with a broader deflator (final domestic demand prices) in place of the CPI.

Over time, the gap between the two mostly reflects how the prices of what a region produces have moved relative to consumer prices (its terms of trade). Real GDP in chained dollars is less suited to comparing levels: chained values do not add up, so provinces do not sum to Canada and shares of Canada are approximate, and each province's output is valued at 2017 prices. As a rule of thumb, use real GDP for growth in output and productivity, and CPI-adjusted GDP for income and living standards, for comparisons across provinces, and for provincial history before 1981.

Measures

Level (as published): the value in the database, in the variable's own units.
Annual per cent change: the change from the previous year. For the consumer price index this is the inflation rate.
Index: each series divided by its value in a base year, times 100. By default the base is the first year shown in which every selected series has data; choose a fixed base year in the sidebar.
Per cent of Canada: each region's value divided by Canada's, times 100. For totals (GDP, population, employment) it is the region's share of the national total. For per-person, per-worker and price measures it is the region's level relative to the national level (Canada = 100); for the CPI, which every region sets to 100 in , it compares cumulative price changes since , not price levels.
Average annual growth: compound growth of the published level between two years, ((end ÷ start)^1/years − 1) × 100. For inflation, which is already a rate, the cards and tables show its simple average instead.
Logarithmic scale: equal vertical distances show equal proportional changes, so a series growing at a steady rate is a straight line.

Sources

Population

Canada, 1867–1945: Historical Statistics of Canada, series A1–247 (Statistics Canada 11-516-X).
Canada, 1946 to latest: Statistics Canada table 17-10-0009-01 (annual average of quarterly estimates).
Provinces, 1867–1970: Tombe, Trevor (2018), “‘Final and Unalterable’—But Up for Negotiation: Federal-Provincial Transfers in Canada,” Canadian Tax Journal 66(4).
Provinces and territories, 1971 to latest: Statistics Canada table 17-10-0005-01 (July 1 estimates).

Employment

Canada, 1921–1945: Historical Statistics of Canada, series D124–133. These are counts as of June 1, not annual averages.
Canada, 1946–1975: Historical Statistics of Canada, series D470–476.
Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Newfoundland and Labrador, 1950–1975: Historical Statistics of Canada, series D470–476.
Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, 1950–1975: imputed from provincial population and unemployment rates (Statistics Canada table 36-10-0229-01), with changes in employment-to-population ratios for the Prairie and Maritime regions taken from the regional data in series D470–476.
All provinces, 1921–1949: a similar procedure, using the regional employment indexes in the Canada Year Book 1947 to keep the provinces consistent with the national total. Unemployment rates for the Prairie and Maritime provinces are those reported by trade unions in the Interwar Labour Database to 1944, extended to 1949 using quarterly rates in the Canada Year Book 1950.
Canada and the provinces, 1976 to latest: Statistics Canada table 14-10-0327-01 (Labour Force Survey, annual).
Territories: Statistics Canada table 14-10-0292-01 (annual average of monthly estimates).

Gross domestic product (nominal)

Canada, 1870–1960: Òscar Jordà, Moritz Schularick and Alan M. Taylor (2017), “Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts,” NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2016, volume 31 (Jordà–Schularick–Taylor Macrohistory Database). GDP for 1867–1869 is approximated from population growth relative to 1870.
Canada, 1961 to latest: Statistics Canada table 36-10-0104-01 (annual average of quarterly GDP at market prices).
Provinces, 1926–1949: imputed from household income per person, using the relationship between GDP per person and household income per person in 1950–1975 (Statistics Canada table 36-10-0229-01).
Provinces, 1950–1980: Statistics Canada table 36-10-0229-01 (long-run historical data).
Provinces and territories, 1981 to latest: Statistics Canada table 36-10-0221-01.

Real GDP (chained 2017 dollars)

Canada, 1870–1960: real GDP per person from Jordà, Schularick and Taylor (2017), as above (based on Maddison), times their population, scaled to match Statistics Canada in 1961. For 1867–1869, real GDP per person is held at its 1870 value.
Canada, 1961 to latest: Statistics Canada table 36-10-0104-01 (annual average of quarterly GDP at market prices, chained (2017) dollars).
Provinces and territories, 1981 to latest: Statistics Canada table 36-10-0222-01 (GDP at market prices, chained (2017) dollars). Statistics Canada does not publish comparable provincial real GDP for earlier years.

CPI-adjusted GDP

Nominal GDP (above) divided by the Canada-wide consumer price index (below), rebased so that = 100.

Consumer prices

Canada, 1870–1913: Jordà, Schularick and Taylor (2017), as above. The CPI for 1867–1869 is held at its 1870 value.
Canada, 1914 to latest: Statistics Canada table 18-10-0005-01.
Provinces, 1926–1978: Statistics Canada table 36-10-0229-01 (linked consumer price index).
Provinces, 1979 to latest: Statistics Canada table 18-10-0005-01.

Estimated years

With Shade estimated years on, these years are shaded in the charts and marked “est.” in tooltips and tables. They are reasonable estimates, but use them with more than a few grains of salt.

Things to keep in mind

CPI-adjusted GDP is not real GDP. It measures purchasing power over consumer goods, not the volume of production, so it can grow quite differently from Statistics Canada's real GDP, especially in resource-producing provinces when commodity prices swing. See Real GDP and CPI-adjusted GDP.
Real GDP for provinces starts in 1981, and for Canada it is spliced in 1961 from a long-run academic series. Before 1981, CPI-adjusted GDP is the only inflation-adjusted provincial measure here.
Provinces don't sum exactly to Canada. National GDP comes from the quarterly national accounts and national population is an annual average, while provincial GDP comes from the provincial accounts and provincial population is a July 1 estimate. Shares of Canada can therefore add to slightly more or less than 100 per cent.
The newest year may be partial. Where a series ends a year later than the others, such as territorial employment, the last value can be an average of the months published so far.
Before 1999, the Northwest Territories included what is now Nunavut. Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation in 1949; Alberta and Saskatchewan series begin in 1901.

Coverage

How to cite

Questions or comments? Please email Trevor Tombe (University of Calgary) at .

Licence

This tool and its database are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). You may share and adapt them for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you give appropriate credit (see How to cite), link to the licence and say if you made changes. The underlying source data remain under their own terms: Statistics Canada data under the Statistics Canada Open Licence, and the Jordà–Schularick–Taylor Macrohistory Database under the terms set by its authors.