[API] statcanR: Application

Learn how to retrieve data from statcanR and produce a visual.

In order to provide an efficient way to get data from Statistics Canada, we have created an R package named statcanR. This course will teach you how to use statcanR.

Loading Data

library(statcanR)
mydata <- statcan_data("27-10-0014-01","eng")

Detailed arguments of the function:
27-10-0014-01: Statistic Canada table number
eng: Language of the table

With a simple web search ‘statistics canada wages by industry metropolitan area monthly’, the table number can easily be found on Statisitcs Canada’s webpage. Here is below a figure that illustrates this example, such as ‘27-10-0014-01’ for the Federal expenditures on science and technology, by socio-economic objectives.

Manipulating Data

The date (column REF_DATE) needs to be transformed, so we can apply a real date format.

library(stringr)
mydata$date <- str_sub(mydata$REF_DATE,-4,-1)
mydata$date <- paste0(mydata$date, "-01-01")
mydata$date <- as.Date(mydata$date)

We need to create a subset of our data to create a graph.

mydata <- mydata[mydata$`Science and technology components`=="Research and development", ]
mydata <- mydata[mydata$`Socio-economic objectives`!="Total socio-economic objectives"]
mydata <- mydata[mydata$`Type of expenditures`=="Intramural"]

names(mydata)[names(mydata) == "Socio-economic objectives"] <- "se_objectives"

library(dplyr)
mydata <- filter(mydata, se_objectives == "Energy"| 
                 se_objectives == "Environment"| se_objectives == "Health" | se_objectives == "Telecommunication")

Visualizing Data

palette <- c("#f8c72d", "#db0a16", "#255293", "black")

library(ggplot2)
library(ggthemes)
ggplot(data = mydata, aes(x = date, y = VALUE)) +
  geom_line(aes(colour=se_objectives), size = 0.8)  + 
  theme_hc() +
  theme(legend.position="right", title=element_text(size=10)) +
  labs(title = "Intramural research and development per socio-economic objectives",
       subtitle = "(2003 - 2018)",
       x = "Date",
       y = "Million dollars CAD",
       colour = "Socio-economic\n objectives",
       caption = "Source: Statistics Canada") +
  scale_color_manual(values = palette)