Area Suppression: "For all census products released, procedures are applied to prevent the possibility of associating statistical data with any identifiable individual; the data are randomly rounded and they are suppressed for certain geographic areas.  Area suppression results in the deletion of all characteristic data for geographic areas with populations below a specified size.  Thus, areas with a population of less than 40 persons are suppressed.  However, if the data are released at the postal code level or forward sortation area (FSA) level, those areas with populations below 100 persons are suppressed (Statistics Canada; 1999:252-253)."

Census Metropolitan Area (CMA): "is a very large urban area (known as the urban core) together with adjacent urban and rural areas (known as urban and rural fringes) that have a high degree of social and economic integration with the urban core.  A CMA has an urban core population of at least 100,000, based on the previous census.  Once an area becomes a CMA, it is retained as a CMA even if the population of its urban core declines below 100,000.  All CMAs are subdivided into census tracts(Statistics Canada; 1999:183)."

Census Subdivision (CSD): "is the general term applying to municipalities (as determined by provincial legislation) or their equivalent (for example, Indian reserves, Indian settlements and unorganized territories). In Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and British Columbia, the term also describes geographic areas that have been created by Statistics Canada in cooperation with the provinces as equivalents for municipalities for the dissemination of statistical data (Statistics Canada; 1999:195-196)".

Census Tract (CT): "are small geographic units representing urban or rural neighbourhood-like communities...  CT boundaries must follow permanent and easily recognizable physical features...  The population of a CT should range between 2,500 and 8,000, with a preferred average of 4,000 (Statistics Canada; 1999:97,99)."

Ethnic Origin: "Refers to the ethnic or cultural origins of a persons ancestors.  An ancestor is someone from whom a person is descended and is usually more distant than a grandparent.  Other than Aboriginal persons, most people can trace their origins to their ancestors who first came to this continent.  Ancestry should not be confused with citizenship or nationality (Statistics Canada; 1999:12)."

Immigrant Population: "Refers to people who are, or have been, landed immigrants in Canada. A landed immigrant is a person who has been granted the right to live in Canada permanently by immigration authorities.  Some immigrants have resided in Canada for a number of years, while others are recent arrivals.  Most immigrants are born outside Canada, but a small number were born in Canada (Statistics Canada; 1999:22)."

Mother Tongue (Single Response): "Refers to the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual at the time of the census... two languages are reported (multiple response) only if they were used equally often and are still understood (Statistics Canada; 1999:71-72)."

Visible Minority: "...visible minorities are persons (other than Aboriginal persons), who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour (Statistics Canada; 1999:100)."

References

Statistics Canada. 1996 Census Dictionary.  (Catalogue No. 92-351-UIE) Ottawa: 1999