Data sources and methodology

The SLSA is based on two key Statistics Canada data products: the Annual Survey of Manufacturing and Logging (ASML)[4] and customs and balance of payments data from the International Accounts and Trade Division (IATD). The ASML is the core information used to build the industries in the SLSA (other than the construction industries). The IATD data are used to generate international imports and exports estimates.

To generate the SLSA industry estimates, ASML information must be transformed and adjusted to align with macroeconomic concepts. This introduces differences between what is published as part of the ASML principal statistics[5] and what is captured in the Satellite Account. Conceptually, the Satellite Account covers operating activities, whereas several of the ASML principal statistics include non-operating revenues and expenses. Furthermore, valuation adjustments are made to inventories in national accounts, which are not made in the survey data. Methodologically, some items are combined and presented differently. For example, finished goods inventory changes are netted out against sales revenues as part of Satellite Account output. Purchases of goods for resale are netted out against sales of goods for resale and called a margin output in the SUT.

The Satellite Account incorporates published ASML and IATD data for all reference years. For reference years 2013 and 2014, the benchmark CSUTs were used to anchor the estimates and provide the contextual information for the economy as a whole. For 2015 and 2016, the benchmark CSUTs were not available, so GDP aggregates from the Provincial and Territorial Economic Accounts were relied upon to anchor the economy-wide totals[6].

Once the industry estimates are generated and benchmark GDP information has been compiled, the remaining elements of supply and use are added: trade and transport margins and taxes on products, international and interprovincial imports and exports, household and government consumption, and investment information. Each of these elements begins with source information and then allocates to products using concordances. For example, international trade data are primarily sourced from customs data collected using the Harmonized System (HS). The HS is at an even more detailed level than the Satellite Account products and is thus merely a process of aggregating data.

Once initial estimates have been generated and the data have been adjusted to international macroeconomic accounting concepts, the data are integrated into the supply and use framework and two key accounting identities are reconciled:

1. Supply = use, across all products
2. Outputs = inputs, for each industry

In practice, source data and estimation methods do not generate estimates that satisfy these constraints. These constraints are satisfied through an iterative process known as product balancing[7]. During this process, the strengths and weaknesses of all data sources are assessed and adjustments are made to reconcile the different sources of information. By the end of this process, inconsistencies have been identified, feedback has been made to source data providers and the constraints have been satisfied. The result is a completely coherent set of information for the industries and products compiled.