Skip to content
CanadianDataInsights
Menu

Data sources

Where our numbers come from, how we process them, and how we attribute Statistics Canada data.

Primary source

Canadian Data Insights is built from the official Statistics Canada Census of Population, 2021. We do not invent estimates or mix in third-party extrapolations for the demographic figures shown on location profiles.

Profiles cover provinces, territories, and municipalities with a population of at least 5,000, drawn from census geography identifiers and published characteristic tables.

What we process

Raw census extracts are cleaned and reshaped into location-level profiles. For each place we surface categories such as population and growth, households, income, languages, education, labour and industry, dwelling types, and related rankings within the same geography level.

Charts, comparisons, and rankings on this site are derived from those processed tables. Presentation choices (layout, labels, rankings) are ours; the underlying counts and rates remain Statistics Canada's published census data.

Education, commute (including worked at home), occupation, and industry on location pages and the comparison tool use the census counts already stored for each place. The percentages in those sections are calculated here from those counts. Where a set of categories does not add to its published total, the page shows the published figures and does not fill the gap. Location pages anchor those sections at #education, #commute, #occupation, and #industry. The comparison tool uses the same ids once two places are selected.

Housing tenure and shelter costs

Tenure, the share of households spending 30% or more of income on shelter, and monthly shelter costs come from the 2021 Census tables below. The extract was taken on 2026-11-01. The reference period is 2021. Values are copied from the published tables for all private households, not an income or family subgroup. Suppressed cells are left blank. A municipality that is outside the table's geography is left off the page.

  • Table 98-10-0252-01. Shelter-cost-to-income ratio by tenure: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations.
  • Table 98-10-0253-01. Shelter cost by tenure including presence of mortgage payments and subsidized housing: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations.

Those tables cover Canada, the provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas, and census agglomerations. A location page shows them only when that page's place name matches one of those published areas. Mississauga does not receive the Toronto census metropolitan area. Owner and renter shares, and the share spending 30% or more of income on shelter, are calculated on this site from the published household counts. Shelter-cost bands can differ slightly from the household total because census counts are randomly rounded.

Consumer prices

The cost-of-living page uses two monthly tables. The all-items index on this build is September 2026, compared with September 2025. The 12-month percent change is calculated here from those two published index levels. It is not a separate Statistics Canada percent-change series. Grocery prices use each product's latest published month. The extract was taken on 2026-11-01.

City CPI rows follow Statistics Canada's price-index geography, which is not the municipality alone. The food index is published for Canada, the provinces, Whitehorse, and Yellowknife. A location page shows a price card only when one of these geographies matches that place.

Open Government Licence - Canada

Statistics Canada data is used under the Open Government Licence - Canada. That licence lets anyone copy, modify, publish, translate, adapt, and distribute the information, provided Statistics Canada is acknowledged as the source and the licence terms are followed.

Suggested attribution for reuse of figures shown here:

Adapted from Statistics Canada, Census of Population, 2021. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.

Accuracy and limitations

Census values can be affected by suppression, rounding, and geography definitions. We aim for faithful parsing and clear visualization, but we do not warrant absolute completeness for every derived chart or ranking.

For official definitions, methodology notes, and downloads, visit Statistics Canada.

Related policies

See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for how we handle site analytics and use of this platform.