Democratizing data through innovative data governance and visualizations Patrick GILL, Stephen TAPP (Chambers of Commerce, Canada) Small organizations in Canada struggle with accessing and leveraging data on business conditions and trends. These organizations have expressed difficulty in knowing what is available, accessing it and converting this information into actionable insights. To empower small organizations with more business-related information and insights, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has built a suite of free tools that merge and visualize traditional statistics with powerful high-frequency data sets (e.g. payments and mobility). This work is enabled by innovate data governance (e.g. a data trust) and a collaborative partnership with Statistics Canada. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce is continuing work with Statistics Canada to release more local business information available through the agency’s Business Register (e.g. the mapping of local business districts), and is exploring how Generative AI can support small organizations’ navigation and understanding of the business information it has curated. Find out more at https://oe.cd/spl-mtg

1. Canadian Chamber’s
Business Data Lab:
Advancing and democratizing
business data in Canada
Stephen Tapp Patrick Gill
Chief Economist Sr. Director
OECD Working Party on Territorial Indicators
November 13, 2023

2. 2
Background and
Mission
• Launched Feb 2022 in collaboration with
the Government of Canada (Statistics
Canada and ISED).
1. Empower Canadian businesses and
stakeholders through democratized data
and valuable insights.
2. Advance Canada’s understanding of
business conditions and trends through
local, future-focused, timely analysis.

3. The Business Data Trust
3
Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab
• Created Canada’s first Business Data Trust (BDT) to house the
BDL’s data.
• Secure data repository in StatCan’s Collaborative Analytics
Environment with an innovative governance model to:
1) Disperse the value of data curated for research purposes,
2) Enhance public confidence in how data are managed.
• Democratized data worth millions of dollars in the private sector;
several academics granted free access to undertake cutting-edge
research.

4. Created a suite of new tools that compliment
traditional statistics with high-frequency data

5. Canadian Survey on
Business Conditions
Read Latest Report
5
In-depth analysis of business
conditions, including obstacles,
outlook and emerging issues.

6. Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab
100
15,000
Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey (BOS)
Statistics Canada's Canadian Survey on Business
Conditions (CSBC)
Survey respondents
• Canadian Survey on Business Conditions created early in the pandemic.
• Large sample size permits statistically-valid disaggregated results.
With Statistics Canada, we developed the
largest quarterly business survey in Canada
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7. Provides unique business insights
**Business outlook, next 12 months
% of respondents, by ownership
0 20 40 60 80 100
Immigrant to Canada
Visible minority
LGBTQ2 community
Person with a disability
Women
First Nations, Métis or Inuit
National
average
Very optimistic Somewhat optimistic
63%
38%
50%
52%
55%
57%
58%
59%
65%
65%
66%
71%
74%
74%
75%
78%
83%
37%
62%
50%
48%
45%
43%
43%
41%
35%
35%
34%
29%
27%
26%
25%
22%
17%
Men 50%
*Share of women and men in senior management positions
% of respondents, by industry
All industries
Health care, social assistance
Accommodation, food services
Arts, entertainment, recreation
Finance, insurance
Other services
Retail trade
Real estate
Professional services
Administrative services
Information and culture
Transportation, warehousing
Wholesale trade
Manufacturing
Agriculture, forestry
Mining, oil and gas
Construction
Women 50%
*BDL analysis of StatCan’s CSBC. Based on responses from 15,963 businesses in January and February 2023.
**BDL analysis of StatCan’s CSBC. Based on responses from 15,401 businesses in April and May 2023. 7
Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab
Women managers under-represented in 14 of 16 sectors Indigenous-and-women-owned businesses more optimistic

8. Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab 8
Value-added analysis on timely issues

9. 9
Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab
• Survey Insights Generator allows users to explore CSBC data more
effectively and generate customized results by geography and firm
characteristics.
Survey Insights Generator
Social Media
Infographics
Reports
Enables further research and business
benchmarking

10. Business Conditions
Terminal
Watch Video
10
Premier analytics platform to
monitor Canadian business
conditions and trends.

11. Business Conditions Terminal
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Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab
• Spring 2022: BDL consulted businesses on their data
needs. Revealed recurring challenges — that timely,
local data can be expensive and hard to find, collect and
integrate because they come from many sources.
• April 2023: Launched the Business Conditions Terminal
(BCT) to help users stay on top of evolving market
conditions and trends. This easy-to-use analytics
platform, brings together in one platform, over 2,300
indicators from 30 data sources.
• Features expert BDL assessments and ratings
of Canadian business conditions in nine interactive
thematic dashboards.
• Free
• Comprehensive coverage
• User-friendly, customized results
• Canadian-focused, bilingual
• Always on
Key Features
bdl-lde.ca/terminal/

12. Local Spending Tracker
Watch Video
12
Interactive tool to monitor
consumer spending across
Canada.

13. Local Spending Tracker
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• Timely consumer spending trends across Canada using payments data.
• Granular insights for 35 locations, using a robust methodology that accounts
for seasonality, inflation and population changes.
• Compliments official statistics, but available one month earlier, for more
geographies and at a higher frequency.
Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab
Spending
Tracker
Retail Sales
Publication lag 3 weeks 7 weeks
Frequency Weekly Monthly
Geographies 35 23

14. Workplace Mobility
Tracker
Explore Data
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Comprehensive look at the workplace
mobility patterns that have emerged
across Canada since the pandemic.

15. Monitoring workplace mobility
across Canada
15
Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab
• Workplace Mobility Dashboard provides “return to office” trends for
Canada, 13 provinces and territories, 153 cities and 55 downtowns.
• Significant local variation. Users can compare how their city is faring
and which regions are leading or lagging national trends.
• Our report identifies which downtowns have been hit hardest. By
linking this dataset with demographic and employment data, we
explain which factors are systematically driving these patterns.
bdl-lde.ca/workplace-mobility-tracker/

16. Questions?
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