Canadian Classification of Institutional Units and Sectors (CCIUS) 2012

Introduction

Preface
Acknowledgements
Background
Conformance of CCIUS 2012 with the international standard
Titles and codes at the subgroup level
Summary of the classification structure

Preface

The 2012 version of the Canadian Classification of Institutional Units and Sectors (CCIUS) was developed as a result of the implementation of international recommendations published in the 2008 System of National Accounts manual (SNA 2008). It replaced Statistics Canada's Classification of Institutional Units by Sector (CIUS) that was based on the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA 1993).

CCIUS is an important classification that provides consistent and coherent definition for concepts underlying the production of economic statistics used for compiling macroeconomic aggregates published by all the programs in the Macroeconomic Accounts Branch. It provides the classification framework needed by statistical infrastructure and survey programs such as the Statistical register as well as Industrial organization and Finance for maintaining up-to-date survey frames, and collecting data from institutional units. CCIUS also serves as the backbone of the system of national accounts framework by providing the necessary linkage to the sequence of economic accounts from the production account all the way to the national balance sheet account, enhancing data integration, as well as the quality of data and metadata. The classification is used for publishing Canada's economic statistics by institutional sectors as well as in Statistics Canada's international data submissions to international organizations such as the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, International Monetary Fund, etc.

CCIUS is the grouping of institutional units that make up the sectors of the entire economy as presented in the SNA 2008 manual. An institutional unit is an economic entity that is capable of owning assets, incurring liabilities, and engaging in economic activities and transactions with other entities. Institutional units are allocated to institutional sectors according to the nature of the economic activity they undertake, namely production, consumption and capital accumulation. The allocation leads to the grouping of similar institutional units within a given institutional sector, as well as to the delineation of sectors that are fundamentally different from each other due to their economic objectives, functions, and behaviour.

The international version of institutional classifications as presented in the 2008 SNA incorporates new areas that were not in the 1993 SNA. Statistics Canada has implemented some of these recommendations. Some differences however, did not allow for the full adoption of the classification as recommended by SNA2008. The following is a summary of some of the major differences. One, in the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (CSMA), formerly the Canadian System of National Accounts (CSNA), all public financial corporations are separately classified as Financial Government Business Enterprises (FGBEs). This practice pre-dates the 1993 and 2008 SNA. This is also true for public non-financial corporations that are classified separately as Non-financial Government Business Enterprises (NGBEs). Two, for dissemination purposes, there is no breakdown between national and foreign institutional units in the CSMA. In other words, there is no delineation between domestic and foreign controlled units. Three, even though Statistics Canada's Statistical Register maintains extra variables (essentially based on administrative data) in order to flag the Non Profit Institutions (NPI), the CSMA does not provide a breakdown between NPIs and For Profit Institutions (FPIs). Four, there are also differences in the extent of sector detail between the CSMA and SNA 2008. CSMA has more detail on insurance corporations and general government (due to the inclusion of Canadian specificity - Aboriginal general government) and SNA 2008 has more financial subsectors than CSMA, 9 versus 5 respectively.

CCIUS 2012 is closely aligned with the international version at the sector level (two-digit). Starting from the subsector level (three-digit), the CSMA and the SNA2008 begin to diverge where the former has 5 financial subsectors and the later has 9 financial subsectors which had to be collapsed into 5. As a result, the subsector level is more of a harmonized version of CSMA's classification with SNA 2008. At the major group (four-digit) and group (five-digit) levels the CCIUS is almost entirely a reflection of the working level details that are currently used in the CSMA. At the subgroup (six-digit) level those institutional units controlled by government are designated with a classification code that ends with 1, while those controlled by national private and foreign institutional units are designated with codes that end with 2 and 3, respectively. This is simply a designation of codes that is consistent with SNA 2008 and does not necessarily follow the standard classification coding scheme that was applied to the rest of the structure.

CCIUS has been developed as a standard classification, compliant with the Statistical Classification Model of the Generic Statistical Information Model (GSIM).

Acknowledgements

The development of Canadian Classification of Institutional Units and Sectors (CCIUS) 2012 required the time, energy and co-operation of a number of experts from Standard division, the Macroeconomic accounts branch, and other divisions within Statistics Canada.

CCIUS was developed by Berouk Terefe under the supervision of Tony Labillois and Philippe Gagné of the National Accounts Integration Group (NAIG). The work has benefited from expert input and guidance from Alice Born, Director of Standards Division, Johanne Pineau-Crysdale, and Michael Pedersen. James Tebrake, Director General Macroeconomic Accounts Branch, Charles Wright and Michel Pascal have also provided valuable feedback. Serge Aumont provided input on the preliminary version.

CCIUS 2012 is published by Standards Division. Thanks to Brent Hultquist and Niloufar Zanganeh for their technical support.

Background

Statistics Canada's Classification of Institutional Units by Sector (CIUS) that was based on the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA) has been updated and replaced by the 2012 Canadian Classification of Institutional Units and Sectors (CCIUS) based on SNA 2008.

The classification of institutional units and sectors is the grouping of institutional units that make up the sectors and subsectors of the entire economy as presented in the SNA 2008 manual. An institutional unit is an economic entity that is capable of owning assets, incurring liabilities, and engaging in economic activities and transactions with other entities.

Institutional units are allocated to institutional sectors according to the nature of the economic activity they undertake, namely production, consumption and capital accumulation. The allocation leads to the grouping of similar institutional units within a given institutional sector, as well as to the delineation of sectors that are fundamentally different from each other due to their economic objectives, functions, and behaviour.

According to SNA 2008, the main attributes of institutional units may be described as follows:

An institutional unit is entitled to own goods or assets in its own right; it is therefore able to exchange the ownership of goods or assets in transactions with other institutional units;
It is able to take economic decisions and engage in economic activities for which it can be held directly responsible and accountable by law;
It is able to incur liabilities on its own behalf, to take on other obligations or future commitments and to enter into contracts;
Either a complete set of accounts, including a balance sheet of assets and liabilities, exists for the unit, or it would be possible and meaningful, from an economic viewpoint, to compile a complete set of accounts if they were to be required.

The total economy consists of the entire set of resident institutional units. There are two types of institutional units, namely persons or group of persons, and legal or social entities. Persons or groups of persons make up the households sector. Legal or social entities engaging in economic activities and transactions make up the rest of the sectors in the economy, in the form of corporations (non-financial and financial) including quasi corporations, general government, and non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH). Quasi-corporations are unincorporated enterprises that behave the same way as corporations, maintaining a complete set of accounts, including balance sheets. As such, all resident institutional units are grouped together to form institutional sectors, on the basis of their principal functions, behaviour and objectives, and are allocated to one and only one of the following five institutional sectors: the Non-financial corporations sector, the Financial corporations sector, the General government sector, the Households sector, and the Non-profit institutions serving households sector. These sectors are described in more detail in subsequent sections of this document.

The residence of each institutional unit is the economic territory with which it has the strongest connection, (i.e. its centre of predominant economic interest). As a result, each institutional unit is treated as a resident of a single economic territory. An institutional unit has a centre of predominant economic interest in an economic territory when there exists, within the economic territory, some location, dwelling, place of production, or other premises on which or from which the unit engages and intends to continue engaging, either indefinitely or over a finite but long period of time, in economic activities and transactions on a significant scale. The location does not need to be fixed so long as it remains within the economic territory. The actual or intended location for one year or more is used as an operational definition; while the choice of one year as a specific period is somewhat arbitrary, it is adopted to avoid uncertainty and facilitate international consistency.

The resident institutional units other than households are delineated between market and non-market producers where the former consists of the Financial and Non-financial corporations sectors while the latter consists of the General government sector with government controlled institutional units as well as the Non-profit institutions serving households sector. Market producers are establishments whose output is entirely or mostly market production. That is, market production consisting of output intended for sale at economically significant prices. Non-market producers consist of establishments owned by government units or NPISHs that supply goods or services for free, or at prices that are not economically significant, to households or the community as a whole.

SNA2008 distinguishes between three ownership and control types, public, private, and foreign control which are all briefly described below. Readers are referred to the SNA 2008 manual for a more detailed description of each.

Under public control, a corporation is a public corporation if a government unit, another public corporation, or some combination of government units and public corporations controls it, where control is defined as the ability to determine the general corporate policy of the corporation. The expression "general corporate policy" as used here is understood in a broad sense to mean the key financial and operating policies relating to the corporation's strategic objectives as a market producer. For entities that are identified as public-private partnership, because of their fluid nature, there is no prescriptive rule or criteria used for determining control and ownership. Instead, the provision of each public-private partnership is evaluated on a case-by-case basis in order to determine the unit that has control over the entity.

Under private control, a single institutional unit owning more than half of the shares, or equity, of a corporation is able to control its policy and operations by outvoting all other shareholders, if necessary. Similarly, a small, organized group of shareholders whose combined ownership of shares exceeds 50 per cent of the total is able to control a corporation by acting in concert.

Under foreign control, in general, a non-resident unit controls a resident corporation if the non-resident unit owns more than 50 per cent of the equity of the corporation. Branches of non-resident corporations are by their nature always under foreign control. However, control may also be possible with a holding of less than half the equity if the non-resident unit can exercise such powers as exercised under government control, for example via the control of the board or other governing body, control of the appointment and removal of key personnel, or control of key committees of the corporations and so on.

SNA 2008 also distinguishes between Non-profit institutions and For-profit institutions. Non-profit institutions (NPIs) are legal or social entities created for the purpose of producing goods and services but whose status does not permit them to be a source of income, profit or other financial gain for the units that SNA 2008 establishes, control or finance them. Within the Financial and Non-financial corporations sectors, units that are not NPIs are referred to as for-profit institutions, or FPIs. An NPI is not prohibited from making a profit; it is simply prohibited from distributing any profit it makes to its owners. Thus NPIs within the Financial and Non-financial corporations sectors are market producers just as the FPIs are. For more detail on NPIs and FPIs, readers are referred to SNA 2008.

Conformance of CCIUS 2012 with the international standard

Some differences did not allow for the full adoption of the classification as recommended by SNA2008. The following is a summary of some of the major differences.

In the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (CSMA), formerly the Canadian System of National Accounts (CSNA), all public financial corporations are separately classified as Financial Government Business Enterprises (FGBEs). This practice pre-dates the 1993 and 2008 SNA. This is also true for public non-financial corporations that are classified separately as Non-financial Government Business Enterprises (NGBEs).
For dissemination purposes, there is no breakdown between national and foreign institutional units in the CSMA. In other words, there is no delineation between domestic and foreign controlled units.
Even though Statistics Canada's Business Register maintains extra variables (essentially based on administrative data) in order to flag the NPIs, the CSMA does not provide a breakdown between NPIs and FPIs.
There are also differences in the extent of sector detail between the CSMA and SNA 2008.
1. CSMA has more detail on insurance corporations and general government (due to the inclusion of Canadian specificity - Aboriginal general government).
2. SNA 2008 has more financial subsectors than CSMA, 9 versus 5 respectively.

At the subgroup (six-digit) level, detailed coding by type of control has been developed and made available in case any user division in the CSMA decides to make use of it at some point, provided that the information by type of control becomes available. However, as mentioned above, since the control information is not readily available in the CSMA at this time, data on institutional units cannot be delineated by control type. This issue however, becomes irrelevant when it comes to the General government and Households sectors since all the units within the General government sector are under public control while all units within the Households sector are under national private control.

A more detailed discussion related to differences in conformance with the international version is presented below under each of the respective sectors and subsectors.

Non-financial corporations

Unlike the international version, in the CSMA Non-financial corporations are not disaggregated into non-profit institutions (NPIs) and for-profit institutions (FPIs) due to constraints related to operations and dissemination. As well, in the CSMA non-financial corporations that are government business enterprises (GBEs) are classified separately. In CCIUS 2012 they are presented as Public non-financial corporations. The subgroup level may also be further disaggregated by general government subsectors to show the level of government that has controlling authority over a given institutional unit. According to the international version, these GBEs would be classified under the subgroup National public non-financial corporations

Government business enterprises are usually established by governments through an Act of Parliament or Legislature. In some instances, an entity will become a GBE through the government's takeover of a private corporation, by expropriation, by purchasing a controlling portion of voting shares, or by other means. Certain entities may also be classified as government business enterprises in accordance with international convention.

Financial corporations

As opposed to the 9 subsectors identified in the international standard, the Canadian version aggregates the institutional units of the Financial corporations sector into 5 subsectors. Three of these 5 subsectors (of the international version), Money market funds, Non- money market funds, and Captive financial institutions and money lenders subsectors are all imbedded in one subsector of CSMA 2012, Other financial intermediaries (except insurance corporations and pension funds). Two more subsectors from the international version, Insurance corporations and Pension funds are both rolled up into one subsector in the CSMA 2012, Insurance corporations and pension funds.

In the CSMA, financial corporations that are government business enterprises (GBEs) are classified separately. In CCIUS 2012 they are presented as Public financial corporations. The subgroup level may also be further disaggregated by general government subsectors to show the level of government that has controlling authority over a given institutional unit. According to the international version, these GBEs would be classified under the subgroup National public financial corporations.

Other financial intermediaries except insurance corporations and pension funds

In the CSMA, this subsector explicitly includes money market funds, and Non- money market funds. In SNA 2008, each of these is treated as an independent subsector of the financial corporation sector. The subsector also implicitly includes institutional units of Captive financial institutions and Money lenders. This CSMA subsector amalgamates these subsectors that are otherwise treated as three independent subsectors in the international version.

Financial auxiliaries

In the CSMA, unlike in SNA 2008, all financial auxiliaries are classified as investment dealers and are embedded in Other financial intermediaries.

Insurance corporations and pension funds

In the CSMA, this subsector amalgamates Insurance corporations and Pension funds that are otherwise treated as two independent subsectors in the international version, SNA2008.

General government

According to SNA 2008, the sector consists of three levels of governments and social security funds as its subsectors. The three levels of governments are Central government, State government, and Local government. In the CSMA, these three levels of governments are alternatively known as Federal, Provincial and territorial, and Local government respectively. In addition to the three levels of government, the CSMA includes the Aboriginal general government subsector as another stand-alone level of government. The subsector represents First nations and other Aboriginal government institutional units.

There are two types of sectoring schemes presented in SNA 2008 for the General government sector. The first method subdivides the sector into Central government, State government, Local government, and Social security funds, where the subsectors include NPIs but exclude social security funds at that level of government. The second method subdivides the sector into Central government, State government, and Local government where it is understood that each of the subsectors include both NPIs and social security funds at that level of government. The CSMA follows the first of the two sectoring schemes.

In the CSMA, in addition to those entities identified as institutional units within the General government sector, there are also entities identified as sub-institutional units. These are referred to as Autonomous general government organizations and Non-autonomous general government organizations, respectively. Autonomous general government organizations are classified as institutional units that are empowered to operate independently from their parent government. They have their own employees and may be organized as Crown corporations, boards, commissions or agencies. Non-autonomous general government organizations are sub-institutional units that cannot function independently from their parent government. They operate within a government ministry or department. They do not have separate books of account; rather their activities are part of the ministry's or the department's financial transactions.

Households

There is more than one method of subdividing the Households sector into its subsectors depending on the type of analysis or policymaking for which it is used. The method applied by CSMA is subsectoring according to income. The other alternative methods are subsectoring according to characteristics of a reference person and subsectoring according to household size and location. All three methods are fully described in the SNA 2008 manual.

According to SNA 2008, Household unincorporated market enterprises are created for the purpose of producing goods or services for sale or barter on the market. Although in general households are unlike corporations in that they undertake final consumption, they may also engage in production like corporations. Unincorporated enterprises of partnerships with many partners, such as some large legal, accounting or architectural firms, that are likely to behave like corporations, are treated as quasi-corporations assuming complete sets of accounts are available for the partnerships. Unincorporated enterprises that are based on limited liability partnerships are effectively separate legal entities and are treated as corporations. The unincorporated enterprise can only be treated as a corporation if it is possible to separate all its assets, including financial assets down to the level of cash, into those that belong to the household in its capacity as a consumer from those belonging to the household in its capacity as a producer.

Non-profit institutions serving households

This sector consists of non-profit institutions that are engaged in providing goods and services to households for free or at prices that are not economically significant. Non-profit Institutions (NPIs) are allocated to the Financial or Non-financial corporations sectors when they are engaged in market production and to the General government sector if they are engaged in non-market production but subject to government control. An institutional unit classified to NPISHs is controlled neither by corporations nor by general government. In line with SNA 2008, the CSMA has incorporated NPISH as one of the institutional sectors in the accounts.

Rest of the world

The Rest of the world consists of all non-resident institutional units that enter into transactions with resident units, or have other economic links with resident units. The rest of the world includes certain institutional units that may be physically located within the geographic boundary of a country; for example, foreign enclaves such as embassies, consulates or military bases, and international organizations including central banks of currency unions.

According to SNA 2008, the central bank of a currency union is treated as a special kind of international organization. The members of the international organization of which the central bank is part are the governments or the national central banks of the countries in the currency union. The central bank is treated as being non-resident in any of the member countries of the currency union but is resident in the currency area as a whole. A more detailed discussion on the treatment of currency and economic unions can be found in appendix 3 of the sixth edition of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6). Currently, Canada is not a member of any currency union and no central bank of a currency union exists in Canada.

Titles and codes at the subgroup level

In line with SNA 2008 in the CSMA, institutional units controlled by the various levels of government in Canada are classified as publicly controlled, while those controlled by Canadian private sector institutional units are classified into the national private control category. All subgroups within the general government and households sectors are exclusively under public and national private control, respectively. As a result, in order to avoid redundancy, the titles at the subgroup level within the two sectors, are not referred to as national public and national private.

In order to clearly distinguish those domestically controlled national and private institutional units from the foreign controlled, in the CSMA, the domestically controlled units are referred to as national public and national private, respectively. For institutional units controlled by entities residing outside Canada, the foreign controlled classification is applied.

At the subgroup (six-digit) level those institutional units controlled by government are designated with a classification code that ends with 1, while those controlled by national private and foreign institutional units are designated with codes that end with 2 and 3, respectively. This is simply a designation of codes that is consistent with SNA 2008 and does not necessarily follow the standard classification coding scheme that was applied to the rest of the structure.

Summary of the classification structure

CCIUS 2012 consists of 6 sectors including the Rest of the world, 19 subsectors, 38 major groups, 44 groups, and 62 subgroups. The following summary table shows the counts at each level of the structure.

CIUS 2012 consists of 6 sectors including the Rest of the world, 19 subsectors, 38 major groups, 44 groups, and 62 subgroups. The following summary table shows the counts at each level of the structure.
Economy	Code	Sector	Subsector	Major group	Group	Subgroup	Total number of classes
Total economy	S11	Non-financial corporations	2	2	2	3	9
	S12	Financial corporations	6	15	18	34	73
	S13	General government	5	11	14	14	44
	S14	Households	4	8	8	8	28
	S15	Non-profit institutions serving households	1	1	1	2	5
Rest of the world	S20	Rest of the world	1	1	1	1	4
2	6	Total	19	38	44	62	171

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Date modified:: 2023-01-10

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