Canadian business patterns

The Canadian Business Patterns contains data that reflects counts of business locations (as of December 2008) and business establishments (prior to December 2009) by: 9 employment size ranges, including "indeterminate" (as of December 1997); geography groupings: province/territory, census division, census subdivision (before December 2008), census metropolitan area and census agglomeration; and industry using the North American Industry Classification System (tables at the 2, 3, 4 and 6-digit level) as of December 1998. Before December 2004, these data were also presented using the Standard Industrial Classification (tables at the 1, 2, 3 and 4-digit level).

The data published in the Canadian Business Patterns represents the current number of locations or establishments for a specific reference period which is taken from the Business Register Central Frame Data Base. It is not intended for use as a time series because changes that affect the continuity of the data might result from changes in methodology. Some examples are: the change to another version of the Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) or the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), the addition of the new territory of Nunavut and new rules to better identify inactive units.