Reference
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about where OpenStats data comes from, how it is tiered and refreshed, and how the site is funded.
What is the OpenStats City Score?
The OpenStats City Score averages each city's standing across OpenStats-owned rankings built from public data (currently indoor radon, building permit value, and residential mill rates). Each placement is scored from 0 to 1 inside its list, then averaged. Hometown pages at /cities/ chart the history. External livability lists stay on those pages as separate published appearances.
Where does OpenStats data come from?
Every figure on OpenStats is sourced from a named federal, provincial, or municipal dataset: Statistics Canada tables, Health Canada's radon survey, Natural Resources Canada's hazard layers, ISED's broadband data, and municipal open data portals for property tax and water quality. The full list, with links to each original dataset, is on the data sources page. OpenStats does not collect its own field measurements; it ingests and normalizes public data, publishes topic readings, and builds rankings with source citations on every page.
How often is the data refreshed?
Refresh cadence follows how often each underlying source updates, not a fixed OpenStats schedule. Statistics Canada's building permits table updates monthly with roughly a six-week publication lag; the national broadband map updates roughly twice a year; municipal water quality and property tax figures update on each municipality's own fiscal-year cycle; and hazard layers update on the cadence Natural Resources Canada sets for each layer. Every city page states the period its current figures cover. Details are on the methodology page.
What does a data tier mean on a city page?
Every page is labeled direct, regional proxy, or seed / fallback. Direct means the figure is reported specifically for that municipality. Regional proxy means the municipality is not separately broken out in the underlying source, so the page uses the nearest broader geography, typically a census metropolitan area, as the best available estimate. Seed or fallback means no live source currently covers that municipality, and the figure is a placeholder built from the most recent reliable published number, replaced as soon as a live source becomes available. See the editorial standards page for how each tier is used in rankings and reports.
Why do two cities on the same list show different reporting periods?
Municipalities and provinces do not all report on the same cycle. A ranking or report that spans many cities will sometimes show one city's most recent figure from a different month or year than another city's, because that is the latest period each one has a live reading for. Where a page compares figures across a single fixed period, such as a Construction Pulse report, only cities with a live reading for that exact month are included, and the report states how many cities that covers.
How do rankings like the permit value or permit momentum rankings work?
Each ranking uses one documented method and includes every city that meets its rules. The permit value ranking orders cities by total permit dollar value in each city's latest reporting month. The permit momentum ranking orders cities by year-over-year percentage change in permit value, and only includes cities with a large enough prior-year base for that percentage to be useful. Each ranking page explains its method and inclusion rules in full.
What is Construction Pulse and how often does a new edition come out?
Construction Pulse is a monthly report built from Statistics Canada's building permits table. Each edition covers the cities with a direct reading for that month, reports the national total, compares it to the same month one year earlier and the month immediately before it, and ranks the cities with the highest total value and the fastest year-over-year growth. A new edition is added once a new month's live reading is available from the underlying survey; every past edition remains published in the archive at /reports/.
What appears under News?
The news section publishes timely data-desk stories: ranking shifts, atlas coverage notes, methodology updates, and cross-atlas hometown notes. It is separate from evergreen guides and from city tool pages on the topic atlases. Stories link to the underlying rankings and city pages, follow the same sourcing rules as the rest of the hub, and are included in the RSS feed.
Does OpenStats show advertising, and does it affect the data?
Yes. OpenStats is supported by display advertising, including Google AdSense, on most pages across the network. Advertisements are visually separated from editorial content and do not influence which municipalities are covered, how a figure is tiered, or the content of any ranking or report. See the editorial standards page for our full advertising disclosure.
What data does OpenStats collect about visitors?
OpenStats does not require account registration. Our hosting provider logs standard request data such as IP address and browser type to operate the site. Advertising vendors, including Google, may use cookies to serve ads based on prior visits to this site or others. You can review and opt out of personalized advertising through the controls described on the privacy policy, which also covers PIPEDA compliance for Canadian visitors.
Can OpenStats give me medical, tax, or legal advice about my specific property?
No. Figures on topics such as radon concentration, drinking water quality, and property tax mill rates are provided for general informational and comparative purposes and describe a geography, typically a municipality or region, not any single home or property. Decisions with health or financial consequences should rely on direct testing, a licensed professional, or an official determination specific to the property in question, not solely on a community-level figure published here.
I think a number on an OpenStats page is wrong. How do I challenge it?
Email [email protected] with the page URL, the specific field you believe is incorrect, the value you expect, and a link or citation to the official source document that supports it. We aim to acknowledge correction reports within five business days. Verified corrections are applied at the next scheduled data refresh for that topic; see the contact page for what to include and the editorial standards page for how corrections are handled.
Is OpenStats affiliated with Statistics Canada or any government agency?
No. OpenStats ranks Canadian cities from public data. We are not affiliated with Statistics Canada, Health Canada, Natural Resources Canada, or any provincial or municipal government whose data appears on the site; those organizations publish the underlying figures, and every page that uses their data cites them directly. See the data sources page for the full list.
Why is a municipality I care about missing from a topic site or ranking?
A municipality can be missing from a specific ranking or report, even if it has a page on the relevant topic site, when it lacks a live reading for the exact period or tier that ranking requires. Some smaller municipalities are also not yet covered by any tier of a given topic because the underlying source does not report them separately. Coverage expands as new sources and geography matches are added; if you know of a public dataset covering a municipality we do not yet track, let us know at [email protected].
See also: Methodology · Data sources · Editorial standards · Contact