Notes
The Gross Domestic Product by Industry - Provincial/Territorial (Annual) data in the present section are maintained by Statistics Canada's Canadian System of National Economic Accounts. The data are expressed in basic prices and presented in chained 2007 dollars. The process of chaining removes the effect of changes in price while minimizing distortion over time.
Gross domestic product by industry (GDP) measures the value of output of an industry less the value of intermediate inputs required in the production process. In this sense, it is an output-based measure of economic activity and is commonly referred to as the total value-added of an industry.
GDP growth is an important economic indicator. It measures progress or the rate of expansion of the economy's capacity to produce output (goods and services). It is examined as a measure of the short term stability or instability of the economy. GDP growth is also reflective of the future consumption possibilities for a nation and is the main source of improvements to our standard of living over time.
Economic growth occurs from accumulating human capital (knowledge and skills), investing in physical capital (factories, machinery and equipment) and the implementation of new technologies in the production process.
With benefits to economic growth come costs. One cost to economic growth is that in order to increase the consumption possibilities for tomorrow, we have to forego some consumption today. To maintain economic growth, more effort has to be placed on the production of technology and capital in order to produce goods for future consumption, rather than the production of goods for current consumption.
Other costs may occur from sustaining a high rate of economic growth, such as resource and environmental degradation. However, the impact that the faster economic growth has on our environment and resources is not reflected in the measure GDP growth.
Readers should be aware that there are other ways of expressing Gross Domestic Product aside from those presented here (e.g. expenditure-based and income-based rather than by industry; at factor cost and market prices rather than at basic prices and in constant dollars as opposed to chained dollars). As a result, caution is recommended when comparing the data presented herein with other published sources.
