Topic guides
Practical explainers aligned with how Canadians search for parliamentary ethics information — each guide links to official registries and to Integrity Index tools built on the same records.
Canadian accountability records are public but scattered: a federal ethics registry, ten provincial ones, separate lobbying and procurement registries, and eleven legislatures that each publish votes and bills their own way. These 13 guides explain what each source contains, what it deliberately leaves out, and how to get from a question to a verifiable answer.
Start with your question
Money and private interests
What a representative owns, owes and is given — what has to be declared, what is published, and what the public record deliberately leaves out.
MP financial disclosure in Canada
What federal MPs file with the Ethics Commissioner, the 60-day deadlines, and why the public summary is not the filing.
Read guideMP salary and net worth
An MP's pay is set by statute and published. Their net worth is not public anywhere in Canada — here is exactly why, and what you can find instead.
Read guideMP stock trades: what is and is not disclosed
Canada has no equivalent of the US STOCK Act. No register of individual trades exists, and this is what the rules require instead.
Read guideMPP financial disclosure in Ontario
What Ontario MPPs file under the Members' Integrity Act, the $2,500 threshold in the public statement, and what it excludes.
Read guideMP conflict of interest in Canada
The Conflict of Interest Act and the Members' Code, what triggers an examination, and how to read a filing without over-reading it.
Read guide
Influence and public money
Who is asking government for things, who is being paid by it, and the 2006 statute that created most of these records.
Lobbying registry Canada
How the Registry of Lobbyists works, who must register, and how to find which organisations are meeting your MP.
Read guideGovernment contracts Canada
Proactive disclosure thresholds, where federal and provincial contract data lives, and how contracts connect to disclosures.
Read guideThe Federal Accountability Act, explained
The omnibus statute behind the Conflict of Interest Act, the Commissioner of Lobbying and the Parliamentary Budget Officer — and what it left undone.
Read guide
Votes and legislation
What a representative actually did in the chamber, and how to follow the law they were voting on.
MP voting records in Canada
Why most decisions never carry a name, what attendance figures can and cannot tell you, and how to read a record without drawing the wrong conclusion.
Read guideHow to follow a bill through Parliament
Reading a bill number, what each stage means, and the difference between a bill and the Act it becomes.
Read guideNova Scotia laws and bills
Where the consolidated statutes live, how they differ from bills and regulations, and the Acts people look for most.
Read guide
Getting started
If you do not yet know who represents you, or what records exist at all, start here.
Find my riding: who is my MP and MPP?
Postal-code lookup, why federal and provincial districts are different maps, and how to reach the right representative.
Read guideWhere Canadian political data lives
A map of the public records behind political accountability — and which of them a machine can actually read.
Read guide
About these guides
- What do these guides cover?
- Canadian political transparency records: what federal MPs and provincial members must disclose, how votes and bills are published, how the lobbying and contract registries work, and which official source answers which question. They are explainers about public records, not commentary on individual politicians.
- Where does the underlying information come from?
- Official sources only: the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, provincial integrity and ethics commissioners, the Registry of Lobbyists, Justice Laws, Elections Canada, each legislature's own bill and division records, and the Open Government Portal. Every guide links the source it relies on so you can verify it yourself.
- Can I find a Canadian politician's net worth here?
- No, and neither can anyone else. Canadian disclosure publishes a description of a representative's interests without dollar values, and several categories are exempt from reporting entirely. No public registry produces a net worth figure, so we do not publish one.
- Why is data missing for some provinces?
- Because the source does not publish it in a usable form. Most provincial legislatures record divisions only inside Hansard or Votes and Proceedings PDFs, some registries sit behind logins, and one assembly blocks automated access outright. The live status of every feed is published on our data coverage page rather than filled in with estimates.
Shorter definitions of individual terms are in the glossary, longer write-ups are on the blog, and the current state of every data source is on Data coverage. If a guide is wrong or out of date, tell us through Contact.