A departmental plan describes a department's priorities, plans and associated costs for the upcoming three fiscal years.
- Statistics Canada's raison d'être, mandate, role and operating context can be found on its website.
Key priorities
Canadians need high-quality, insightful and accessible data to support informed decision making. Statistics Canada's mission is to provide the trusted data, statistical services and insights required for these decisions. The agency holds itself to very high standards of quality, privacy protection, communications and measurement to maintain the trust of Canadians, businesses and institutions. In 2025-26, Statistics Canada will continue to deliver regular data releases and updates on a wide variety of topics, while monitoring and responding to emerging challenges and opportunities in the overall statistical landscape.
Statistics Canada's 2023 to 2026 strategic plan articulates the agency's vision to drive its modernization journey forward and outlines its priorities over the period. The plan is very much in line with the agency's overall modernization principles and builds on the agency's past successes and investments in areas such as data science, cloud technologies and other modern tools to continue improving processes, deliverables and outcomes. Statistics Canada's key priorities for 2025-26 are the following:
- Advance the next generation of statistical programs and operations.
- Adopt a complete enabling infrastructure.
- Shape a healthy, diverse and skilled workforce to meet the current and future needs of Canadians.
Highlights
In 2025-26, total planned spending (including internal services) for Statistics Canada is $827,908,530, and total planned full-time equivalent staff (including internal services) is 7,480. For complete information on Statistics Canada's total planned spending and human resources, read the Planned spending and human resources section of the full plan.
The following summarizes the agency's planned achievements for 2025-26 according to its approved Departmental Results Framework. A Departmental Results Framework consists of a department's core responsibilities, the results it plans to achieve and the performance indicators that measure progress toward these results.
Core responsibility: Statistical information
Core responsibility: Statistical information
Statistics Canada's core responsibility is to produce objective, high-quality statistical information for the whole of Canada.
Planned spending: $728,582,988
Planned human resources: 6,762
Departmental results
The agency aims for three broad results to measure the success of its activities:
- High-quality statistical information is available to Canadians.
- High-quality statistical information is accessed by Canadians.
- High-quality statistical information is relevant to Canadians.
The plans to achieve results for statistical information in 2025-26 focus on key areas that will shape Canada's data landscape in the coming years. First, preparations for the 2026 Census of Population and Census of Agriculture are underway to improve data collection tools and communication technologies, while working with stakeholders to address potential data gaps. This work helps ensure that census information will provide valuable insights for government priorities. Similarly, the Census of Environment will deliver more information on the condition of ecosystems across Canada, helping Canadians understand the costs of environmental changes, including climate change.
Likewise, new standards on measuring business investments in data, as well as additional data on emerging technology adoption (e.g., artificial intelligence and clean technology), will improve economic statistics. Additionally, rapid population growth highlights the need for more data on housing markets to assess how demographic shifts are influencing housing demand. Other social statistics programs, like those focusing on health and crime, are also evolving to provide more granular information that speaks to a diversity of experiences, enhancing their relevance for stakeholders. In 2025-26, Statistics Canada will continue developing adaptive and forward-looking statistical programs to effectively support the complex and evolving information needs of governments, businesses and citizens.
The agency is building a strengthened infrastructure, driven by accelerating technological change, decreasing response rates, increasing data proliferation, and expanding opportunities for more data integration and linkage. In 2025-26 and future years, Statistics Canada will prioritize several key areas of infrastructure and technological capabilities, notably accelerating methodological advancements, advancing data management and access, optimizing cloud infrastructure, and shifting activities toward open-source technology like R and Python.
With the goal of fostering a healthy, diverse and skilled workforce to support the agency's mission, Statistics Canada will continue to build and maintain a diverse workforce and an inclusive workplace, strengthen values and ethics within the agency, build a workforce proficient in advanced statistical methods and data integration techniques, and implement new coaching and leadership programs in 2025‑26.
Most importantly, to maintain the trust of its data providers, users and Canadians, Statistics Canada will keep ensuring that data are treated responsibly and ethically throughout their life cycle, guided by international standards, best practices and transparency. The agency follows the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (PDF) and its own frameworks to ensure data are relevant, impartial and available to all.
More information about statistical information can be found in the full plan.