I'll just do a quick overview of some of the operations.
The number of new incorporations in Canada is about 180,000 to 200,000 a year. Prior to fall 2008 the strong Canadian economy has meant that there was an increase in the number of new incorporations. In fiscal year 2007-2008 it reached a high of 200,000.
The percentage of new corporations that go under the CBCA is between 11% and 12% of the national total, and that's been relatively steady. But with the economic downturn of last year, the preliminary data show that incorporations have declined by about 10% throughout Canada. For CBCA incorporations, we've experienced a reduction of 4% from the previous years, and some provincial registrars have experienced a greater reduction.
What this shows is that even in the midst of the economic downturn the federal corporate statute still remains relevant to incorporators across the country, providing a stable legislative framework for aspiring entrepreneurs.
The biggest change since 2001 in the operations has been the use of online filing. We first introduced online filing for incorporations on January 1, 1999, and the 2001 amendments made it easier to offer more services online. So what we have now for online is 90% of incorporations are done online and 81% of returned filings are also done online. While they're still very popular, because we have reached a penetration rate of 90%, there's still a certain percentage who still want to file by paper or other traditional means. We will continue to offer those means of transacting with us.
Currently there are about 192,000 corporations under the CBCA, and fewer than 1% of those are publicly traded. This indicates that the CBCA is an important framework for tens of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises across the country. Having said that, the publicly traded corporations, though, of CBCA represent 39% of the TSX Composite Index, and 56% of the TSX 60 Index is incorporated under the CBCA. That's excluding banks and other financial institutions.
So that's the broad overview from the operational side. I'll just pass it over to Colette.