Description
The Government of Canada will provide searchable information on Canadian businesses that is held in business registries at the federal, provincial and territorial level.
- Lead department:
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Innovation, Science, and Economic Development
- Email address for enquiries:
- Other involved actors:
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n/a
- Overall status:
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All deliverables complete.
Planned result
You’ll have access to real-time information on Canadian businesses registered at the federal, provincial, and territorial levels.
Key indicator
| Indicator | Target | Latest actual data (and data collection date) |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of Canadian corporations whose information is accessible, discoverable, and usable through the online search tool | 80% of corporations by June 2018 | Not available (April 2018) |
Status
Status of Open Government Plan milestones (complete, substantial, limited, not started)
Complete:
- 12.1 Launch a pilot project to provide citizens and business with online capacity to search existing federal and provincial (from Ontario, Québec, and Nova Scotia) business registries through a single search tool.
- 12.2 Develop a proof of concept and prototype of a digital solution for reducing burden in the areas of corporate search, registration, and reporting for Canadian businesses that is expandable to all registries across Canada in order to drive consistency in corporate data provided to the public by both federal and provincial governments.
Other completed milestones:
- As of September, 2016, all provinces and territories approved a proof of concept and agreed to model a prototype for a multi-jurisdictional access service.
- From November 2016 to March 2017, a prototype was developed using datasets from eight registries (federal, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland)
- On December 11, 2017, the Finance Ministers agreed in principle to pursue legislative amendments to federal, provincial and territorial corporate statutes or other relevant legislation to ensure corporations hold accurate and up to date information on beneficial owners that will be available to law enforcement, and tax and other authorities. See Agreement to Strengthen Beneficial Owner Transparency.
Challenges
- We would like to ensure that the search tool is as user-friendly as possible. What are your needs? What would you like to see?
- We have accomplished our targeted milestones. What should we do next? Should we expand the prototype?