Statistics Canada Releases New Provincial and Territorial Culture Indicators (2010-2017)

Statistics Canada has released an updated edition of the Provincial and Territorial Culture Indicators (PTCI). The PTCI are timely economic estimates of culture and sport in Canada, and were developed as an extension of the more comprehensive Provincial and Territorial Culture Satellite Account. The PTCI cover culture (including arts and heritage) and sport across Canada in terms of output, nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and jobs. The newly release stats cover the period from 2010 to 2017.

Among the key national highlights for culture:

• The total gross domestic product (GDP) for culture is an estimated $53.1 billion in 2017.

• The total number of culture jobs is 666,474 as of 2017.

In British Columbia in 2017, the culture GDP constituted roughly $7.1 billion, or 2.7 percent, of the total economy, including 98,050 jobs.

The Provincial and Territorial Culture Satellite Account also highlighted the following national statistics:

Economic importance of culture and sport in Canada

Culture and sport include the images, sounds and stories that we see, hear and read every day, whether it be the museums we visit, the shows we watch or the teams we support in the world of arts and sport.

In 2017, culture and sport gross domestic product GDP combined was $59.7 billion, supporting 784,500 jobs in Canada. Of this figure, the GDP for culture alone was $53.1 billion, supporting 666,474 jobs.

The largest contributor to culture GDP and jobs was audio-visual and interactive media, which includes activities related to video game publishing, film, television and video production, as well as motion picture exhibition.

Culture gross domestic product and jobs increase

Culture GDP in Canada increased 1.8% to $53.1 billion in 2017. During the same period, economy-wide GDP increased 5.7%. As a proportion of Canada's overall GDP, culture accounted for 2.7%. Culture GDP rose in eight of nine domains, including sound recording (+7.2%), audio-visual and interactive media (+2.4%) and visual and applied arts (+1.7%). Written and published works (-1.9%) reported the sole decrease, as all but one of its sub-domains declined in 2017.

Culture jobs in Canada increased 1.6% to 666,500, while economy-wide jobs grew 1.9% in 2017. Culture accounted for 3.6% of all jobs in the economy. The audio-visual and interactive media (+3.1%) and visual and applied arts (+3.3%) domains each accounted for an increase of over 4,700 jobs. Culture jobs in live performance also increased 2.4%, while they decreased in written and published works (-2.7%), sound recording (-0.6%) and heritage and libraries (-0.3%).

Contribution of culture varies across the provinces and territories

The three largest provinces—Ontario ($25.0 billion), Quebec ($11.0 billion) and British Columbia ($7.1 billion)—had the highest culture GDP in 2017. On a per capita basis, Ontario ($1,765) recorded the largest culture GDP.

Reflecting the diverse economies across the country, the contribution of culture to economy-wide GDP varied across the provinces and territories, from 1.3% in Saskatchewan to 3.3% in Ontario.

Full report

For more information, including charts and figures, and a link to the full report, click here.