Canadian Government

An indexed collection of 1+ million publications, from more than 500 individual departments and agencies, lets users draw from a range of government sources in a single search.

For the first time, find federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal reports, literature from major political parties, information and data pertaining to the issues that matter in Canada—healthcare, climate, education, first peoples, and other topics.

Features and tools

1. Index and links for more than 500 Canadian government document collections. Souces include major federal sites, such as The Weekly Acquisitions List, and materials from political parties, local municipal departments, and historical websites.

2. Identification, capture, and preservation of rare, hard-to-find content. Where rights allow, we make copies of the material. If a website is down or an item is removed, our backup copy becomes available. We attach permanent identifiers, so users can cite with confidence—the item will be found.

3. Hosting. We invite members to upload or submit additional government documents for inclusion on the site. The Commons becomes a safe a permanent home for content.

4. Enriched content, searchable tables. Charts and tables are fully searchable, so they can be found without the need to read through the entire document. Then they can be exported in CSV format.

5. Advanced search tools. More than 1 million documents dated from the 1800s to the present can be searched with keywords, facets, fields, Boolean operators, and other advanced tools.

6. Curation. Our editors seek out and select organizations and content that are not found in existing resources.

7. Regular updates. Key sites are updated weekly, for accuracy and currency.

8. Social tools. Users can follow individual topics, people, or organizations; create branded portals; and receive alerts.

9. Integration. The database is fully cross-searchable with the e-books and documents on Canada Commons. It works with major discovery systems including Summon, EDS, and Primo.