INTRODUCTION
IMPLAN is proud to announce the release of sub-provincial data for Data Year 2021 as part of our IMPLAN Canada product. Sub-provincial data are estimated by a geographic unit known as economic regions (ERs). IMPLAN develops data for all ERs in Canada by distributing the Canada Provincial data to ERs based on various employment data sources and proxies (population, household counts, etc.). Data is geographically balanced such that ERs add up to provinces, and provinces and territories add up to Canada national values. Starting with Data Year 2022, sub-provincial data will be released in conjunction with the annual release of the IMPLAN Canada product.
ECONOMIC REGIONS
With the exception of Ontario, an ER is a grouping of complete census divisions (CDs), created as a standard geographic unit for analysis of regional economic activity, that is either designated by law (as in Quebec) or is an administrative boundary created by agreement between Statistics Canada and the provinces concerned. Except for Prince Edward Island and the three Territories, an ER is a geographic unit smaller than a province.
Every 5 years, Statistics Canada releases the Census of Population, which defines the geographic area for ERs. The latest Census of Population comes from 2021, and there are 76 ERs in Canada. The table below demonstrates the number of ERs by province and territory.
| Geographic area | Number of economic regions |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 4 |
| Prince Edward Island | 1 |
| Nova Scotia | 5 |
| New Brunswick | 5 |
| Quebec | 17 |
| Ontario | 11 |
| Manitoba | 8 |
| Saskatchewan | 6 |
| Alberta | 8 |
| British Columbia | 8 |
| Yukon | 1 |
| Northwest Territories | 1 |
| Nunavut | 1 |
| Canada Total | 76 |
For a full list of the economic regions within each province, please see ER and Province Codes. For a crosswalk of census divisions to economic regions, please see CD to ER Map.
DATA SOURCES AND METHODS
Our primary data sources for estimating ER-level data come from Statistics Canada employment data. Our primary ER employment data comes from an experimental Statistics Canada data series that provides labor statistics by ER that is consistent with the provincial and territorial economic accounts used to produce the provincial- and territory-level IMPLAN data. This data reports the number of paid worker jobs and the number of self-employed jobs by ER, which serve as our initial control totals. This data, however, is not industry specific. Industry-specificity is derived using custom Canadian Business Count data from the Business Register, which provide establishment count data by ER and 6-digit NAICS codes.
The two data sources are combined and used to generate first estimates of employment by ER and industry. These first estimates are then balanced geographically and by industry via the RAS method such that ER industry employment data sums to IMPLAN provincial industry employment data, and ER industry employment data sums to total ER employment.
Employment ratios are then used to distribute all Industry data (Output, Employee Compensation, Gross Mixed Income, Gross Operating Surplus, and Other Taxes on Production) into their respective ERs. Due to limited data availability at the ER-level, productivity data (e.g. Output per Worker, Wage and Salary Income per Worker) for all ERs is the same as the province containing the ER.
Other data is used as proxies to distribute provincial-level final demands and trade estimates to ERs. This includes household counts, employment and output by industry, total ER employment.
Finally, we obtain population, land area, and household count data from Statistics Canada Census data.
RELATED ARTICLES
IMPLAN Canada Provincial Data Sources and Methods
Written October 29, 2025