Data sources & licences

Quill aggregates information from government and other public-sector publishers. The publisher for each dataset states the licence (or terms) that applies, and those terms differ from source to source. Where a publisher supplies an attribution statement or licence with the data, Quill carries it into records and API citations as publisher metadata. Where no declaration is supplied, the citation says so and points back to the publisher.

The statements on this page are the publishers' own required notices, reproduced so you can carry them forward when reusing material. This page is not legal advice, does not grant rights in any source material, and does not replace the publisher's terms for your specific use.

Some sources are served in restricted forms by design, not by accident: committee and other parliamentary content is discovery-only in every tier (metadata, short factual summaries, and links — no full text; excluded from bulk export and paid features); Statistics Canada data is served in aggregate form only and is never linked or merged to identify any individual, business, or organization; CanLII, SEDAR+/SEDI, and news feeds are served as citations, metadata, and links with short excerpts only; and federal law reproductions carry a "not an official version" notice.

The service applies these limits in code for every response — see source-policy.ts and the compliance gate that keeps the inventory and the runtime in sync.

To request a correction or removal of a record, see our privacy policy ([email protected]).

Federal datasets that are offered under the Open Government Licence – Canada (for example, many open.canada.ca / CKAN datasets such as proactive disclosure and grants and contributions data) carry this required attribution statement:

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.

Open Government Licence – Canada (full text)

The licence excludes, among other things: personal information; third-party rights the provider is not authorized to license; the names, crests, logos or other official symbols of the provider; and information subject to other intellectual-property rights. It does not grant any right to suggest that the provider endorses you or your use of the information.

Statistics Canada data is offered under the Statistics Canada Open Licence, which requires these notices:

Source: Statistics Canada, name of product, reference date. Reproduced and distributed on an "as is" basis with the permission of Statistics Canada. Adapted from Statistics Canada, name of product, reference date. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.

Statistics Canada Open Licence (full text)

The licence also requires accurate reproduction, no implied endorsement, and prohibits merging or linking the information to identify an individual, business or organization. Reproducing the Statistics Canada name, crest, logos or the official symbols of the Government of Canada (including the Canada wordmark) requires written authorization from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

Committee proceedings, debates, and other parliamentary content are protected by parliamentary privilege; all copyrights in the proceedings are reserved. Reproduction of the proceedings of the House of Commons and its committees is permitted only where the reproduction is accurate and is not presented as official — and does not extend to use for a commercial purpose or financial gain. The Senate's permission for its proceedings and committee content carries the same core conditions: accurate, not presented as official, and not for purposes of financial gain; commercial reproduction requires written permission.

Where a reproduction includes briefs or material submitted to a committee, authorization may also be required from the authors. Quill surfaces this content with its source identified and presents it as-is, without suggesting any status conferred by either House.

• House of Commons — important notices (Speaker's Permission)
• Senate of Canada — intellectual property

Under the Reproduction of Federal Law Order, anyone may — without charge or permission — reproduce enactments and consolidations of enactments of the Government of Canada and decisions of federally constituted courts and tribunals, provided due diligence is exercised in accuracy and the reproduction is not represented as an official version. Other Canada Gazette items and general Government of Canada website content follow the Government of Canada terms and conditions (non-commercial reproduction with conditions; commercial reproduction requires permission from the responsible institution).

• Reproduction of Federal Law Order (SI/97-5)
• Government of Canada terms and conditions

The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying publishes its registrations data under its own open data licence, which requires this attribution statement:

Contains information licensed under the Open Data Licence Agreement — Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

Lobbying open data licence agreement (full text)

The licence carries the same exclusions as the federal OGL, including personal information.

Provincial, territorial and municipal publishers each apply their own licence — often a provincial Open Government Licence or a municipal open data licence — with their own attribution requirements and exclusions. Examples:

• Alberta
• British Columbia
• Ontario
• Québec
• City of Toronto open data licence
• City of Vancouver open data licence

The complete per-source-family list, including publisher terms links for courts, regulators, oversight bodies, international organisations, and news and RSS publishers, is recorded in DATA-LICENSES.md and the machine-readable inventory below.

The federal Open Government Licence and the lobbying open data licence do not grant any right to use personal information, and some source datasets (for example charity or lobbying registrations) can include individuals' names in their published records. Quill's terms prohibit using the service to extract personal information about identifiable individuals. If you believe a record improperly exposes personal information, contact [email protected].

Quill does not reproduce the names, crests, logos or other official symbols of any government publisher, and its use of source information does not suggest any official status or endorsement. The official symbols of the Government of Canada (including the Canada wordmark, the Arms of Canada and the flag symbol) may not be reproduced without prior written authorization.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by the Government of Canada.

• DATA-LICENSES.md — publisher groups, required notices, and the full source-family index
• data-source-licenses.json — machine-readable source-family inventory with publisher terms links
• docs/licensing-audit.md — data-source licence and provenance audit
• docs/open-source-audit.md — software licence audit (separate question)

This page is not legal advice. For any reuse beyond the licence conditions above, verify the current publisher terms for the specific dataset.