Introducing Sub-Provincial Granularity for IMPLAN Canada
We’re excited to announce a major enhancement to IMPLAN Canada: Users can now model economic impacts at the sub-provincial level!
For the first time, IMPLAN users can explore the economies of Canada’s 76 Economic Regions (ERs), offering a new layer of regional precision and insight. Whether you’re analyzing regional investments, evaluating local industries, or assessing community-level impacts, this added granularity opens the door to deeper, more localized understanding of how economic activity flows across Canada.
What are economic regions?
Economic Regions (ERs) are standard geographic units created by Statistics Canada for analyzing regional economic activity. Each ER is made up of complete Census Divisions (CDs) and represents an area that reflects the economic relationships within and across communities.
With the exception of Prince Edward Island and the three territories, every province in Canada contains multiple ERs — for example, 17 in Quebec, 11 in Ontario, and 8 each in Alberta, Manitoba, and British Columbia. Together, these 76 regions provide a consistent framework for examining local economies below the provincial level.
How We Build the Data
IMPLAN’s sub-provincial data are developed by distributing our Canada Provincial dataset to ERs using a blend of employment data, population, and household proxies. All data are geographically balanced so that ERs roll up neatly into provinces and territories — and those, in turn, roll up to Canada’s national totals.
Our methodology combines multiple sources from Statistics Canada, including:
- Labour statistics by Economic Region – providing counts of paid worker and self-employed jobs.
- Canadian Business Count data – offering establishment counts by ER and detailed 6-digit NAICS industry codes.
These sources are integrated and refined through IMPLAN’s proven RAS balancing method, ensuring that industry and employment totals align across all geographic levels. Additional variables such as Output, Employee Compensation, and Gross Operating Surplus are then distributed using employment-based ratios.
This careful process ensures that each region’s data accurately reflects its share of provincial economic activity while maintaining internal consistency across Canada’s full economic landscape.
Why It Matters
This enhancement empowers users to:
- Capture economic dynamics across smaller regions within provinces and territories
- Tailor impact analyses to specific communities and local economies
- Strengthen strategic planning and reporting with more precise, data-driven results
- Support regional policy development with defensible, geographically relevant insights
With sub-provincial granularity, you can now pinpoint the localized effects of a new investment, policy, or industry shift, understanding how those changes reverberate through communities and across regions.
What’s Next
Beginning with Data Year 2022, sub-provincial data will be released alongside IMPLAN’s annual Canada Provincial data, ensuring you always have access to the most current and complete view of Canada’s economy — from the national scale down to the local level.
Ready to take your analysis to the next level?