Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Canada-related articles

This is a summary of current styles and conventions on Wikipedia for Canadian-related articles, as determined by application of Wikipedia policies, existing practice and current consensus among the users of Wikipedia:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board.

This document may be added to as needed. However, if you believe that a guideline listed here should be changed, then please solicit consensus at Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board rather than changing the guideline unilaterally.

Canadian English

Further information: WP:ENGVAR

Canadian English dialect and spelling should be used in newly created articles. Talk pages of Canadian topic based articles may be tagged with {{Canadian English}} to indicate this fact. An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the English of that nation.

Places

See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Canadian communities/Structure guideline

In article text

In articles that identify a Canadian location, the location should be identified with the information City, Province/Territory, Canada, or equivalent wording, unless the article text or title has already established that the subject is Canadian, e.g., it is not necessary to identify the "Parliament of Canada" as being located in "Ottawa, Ontario, Canada" (use "Ottawa, Ontario", or simply "Ottawa" if Ontario is already established).

In articles that are about non-Canadian topics, for example, sports figures, the format of City, Canada may be used as a convention, along with similar listings of other international locations. (This is typically found in listings of tournament results, etc.) Include Canadian cities using the format consistently used in the article. If American states are present, for example, use Canadian provinces and territories as well. This is typical in articles of North American topics. Several Canadian cities are well known internationally but should still be linked on first mention.

Article names

Cities that either have unique names or are unquestionably the most significant place sharing their name can have undisambiguated titles. Canadian settlements that have not been disambiguated with the name of the province are listed at Wikipedia:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/List of undisambiguated communities.

Note the following considerations:

1. Cities can be moved if they (a) have a unique place name, or (b) are the most important use of their name. A city's relative international fame, or lack thereof, may have some bearing on criterion (b), but it is irrelevant if the city qualifies under criterion (a)—if there is no other Flin Flon anywhere in the world, then it is not valid to cite Flin Flon's lack of international fame as a reason to keep the article at Flin Flon, Manitoba.
2. Towns (unless the town's population is akin to that of a city), villages, neighbourhoods and other smaller settlements must have unique place names to qualify for a page move. At this smaller level, importance is too subjective, too prone to circular "mine is more important than yours because mine is the one I've heard of" debates, to be a viable criterion.
3. Population and Google-hit comparisons between cities of the same name may be helpful in determining primary usage, but are not conclusive in isolation. For example, Hamilton and Windsor are larger than their namesakes in other countries, but for historical, political, or cultural reasons they are both less internationally significant than at least one of their smaller namesakes, and thus do not qualify as primary usages. Further, Google searching is geolocated, so that users in different areas will get different sets of results—a user in Canada will see results pertaining disproportionately to the Hamilton in Ontario, while a user in Scotland will see results pertaining disproportionately to the Hamilton in South Lanarkshire, and one in New Zealand will see results pertaining disproportionately to the Hamilton in Waikato—and thus "which one comes up most often when I search on Google" is not a definitive measure.
4. Cities may also lose out as primary usage to non-city topics. For example, Regina and Prince Albert are both the largest cities of those names, but cannot be considered primary topics as both are overridden by their names' royal biography referents.
5. Per Wikipedia:Disambiguation, a disambiguation page is not meant to serve as a search index for all Wikipedia articles that simply have a word in their titles; they are meant only to steer people to the correct choice among articles that could potentially have the same title. For instance, only articles that could potentially be given the title Toronto are to be evaluated when deciding whether that title should be a disambiguation page or an article about the Canadian city. Topics such as Toronto Transit Commission, University of Toronto or Toronto Public Library, which merely contain the word Toronto in a longer name, are not to be considered when making such a decision, as they cannot validly be moved to the plain title "Toronto". A comprehensive article about the city would already include links to these topics anyway.
6. In most cases, an article is a candidate for such a page move if "City" already exists on Wikipedia as a redirect to "City, Province". An article may also be a candidate for such a page move if "City" is a blank redlink. As Wikipedia is a work in progress to which new articles are always being added, the fact that another article doesn't already exist at the plain title does not inherently prove that a name is unique.

Previously, consensus required a page move discussion to take place in all cases before a page could be moved. This is no longer the consensus position, however; straightforward cases may now be moved at any time. However, a discussion should still take place if there is some potential ambiguity as to what the most appropriate name would be, or if there is a legitimate reason to believe that there may be a dispute. If you disagree with the suitability of a page move that has already taken place, however, then do not move the page back to the disambiguated title arbitrarily; rather, start a discussion on the talk page requesting a move back to the comma-province title.

For cities that do not qualify for undisambiguated titles, the correct title format is City, ProvinceOrTerritory (the "comma convention"). For the territories, please note that the correct forms are City, Yukon (not City, Yukon Territory) and City, Nunavut (not City, Nunavut Territory), but City, Northwest Territories (not City, Northwest). For the easternmost province, the proper form is City, Newfoundland and Labrador. Localities that need further disambiguation beyond the province or territory include their county, municipality, or parish. (e.g. Armstrong, Thunder Bay District, Ontario, due to the need to disambiguate it from the Armstrong, Ontario in Timiskaming District; as the one in Timiskaming is an incorporated municipality, it gets title precedence.)

A Canadian city's article, however, should never be titled simply City, Canada (e.g. Halifax, Canada), although it is permissible to create a title of this type as a redirect to the properly titled article. Similarly, a title that uses the province's two-letter postal abbreviation should never be the actual article title, although creating a redirect is normal practice. You may also create redirects from documentably common misspellings such as "Winnepeg", "Ottowa", "St. Catherine's", or "Iqualuit". We do not try to anticipate every conceivable misspelling that could arise.

Dedicated city categories should always be named with the same title format as the city's main article. That is, if the article is at Toronto, then use Toronto rather than Toronto, Ontario, in category names; if it is at Regina, Saskatchewan, then name the related categories in the format Regina, Saskatchewan rather than just Regina.

A former geographic name, such as Berlin, Ontario; Fraserville, Quebec; Bytown; or York, Upper Canada, should have a separate article only if there is something substantial that can be written about the history of that name—otherwise it should exist only as a redirect to the place's current name.

Review of which Canadian cities are likely or unlikely to qualify for page moves takes place at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/Cities.

Neighbourhoods/communities

Article titles for neighbourhoods (and other communities within municipalities) are subject to the same considerations as municipalities, as set out in points 1 to 6 above.

For neighbourhoods that do not qualify for undisambiguated titles, the correct title format is Neighbourhood, City (not Neighbourhood (City), as the "bracket convention" is generally reserved for geophysical features such as rivers and mountains). Where a neighbourhood straddles a municipal boundary and is located in two separate municipalities, the correct title format is Neighbourhood, ProvinceOrTerritory (e.g. Thornhill, Ontario) if disambiguation is needed, regardless of any other consideration listed here.

Where a neighbourhood is recognized as a distinct and valid municipal address by Canada Post (see city lookup here), the title may be at Neighbourhood, Province rather than Neighbourhood, City (e.g. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia). Such neighbourhoods were usually once autonomous municipalities that have since been annexed or amalgamated, or are semi-autonomous municipalities (e.g. Montreal's boroughs).

A neighbourhood article should never be titled Neighbourhood, Canada; Neighbourhood, Former City; Neighbourhood, Upper-tier Municipality; or Sub-Neighbourhood, Larger Neighbourhood; nor disambiguated with a descriptor (e.g. Neighbourhood (Borough)).

Ridings

The names of federal ridings (electoral districts) on Wikipedia follow the conventions of Elections Canada. Different regions within the riding are separated using em-dashes, even when normal style would use en-dashes (e.g. Kitchener—Waterloo). The same is true for a region and its sub-region (e.g. Scarborough—Agincourt, but note also Edmonton Centre). Names within each segment are separated with spaces in English, but are often separated with hyphens in French (e.g. St. John's South—Mount Pearl versus Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine). All reasonable uses of hyphens and dashes should redirect to the actual article. Note in particular that older sources published before the days of electronic typesetting typically rendered electoral district names with double hyphens in lieu of em-dashes, and it is thus possible that a reader who knows the district's name from a source of that type but is not familiar with the actual naming conventions may erroneously believe the version with double hyphens to be the actual formatting of the name. Thus, a district with one or more em-dashes in its name should have a redirect in place from the version with double hyphens.

Provincial ridings follow the conventions established by the province's own elections agency. Generally, provincial riding names use hyphens to separate two regions or a region and its sub-region, but this is not always true. One exception is Ontario, which bases its provincial riding boundaries on the federal ones and uses the same names. Another exception is Quebec, which uses hyphens within region names (like French ridings at the federal level) and uses en-dashes to separate regions (e.g. Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue).

When a riding is renamed with nearly identical boundaries, it does not need a new article. A significant boundary shift, however, should result in a new article instead of a renaming of an old one. When the names and boundaries of federal and provincial ridings are almost identical (as in Ontario), they may share an article if there's only a small amount of information that can be written about the federal vs. provincial districts, but should retain separate articles if there's substantial content.

The word "riding" may be used in articles, but because that usage is unique to Canada, the first time it is used it should either be wikilinked or include the official term "electoral district" in parentheses.

Riding disambiguation

In any case where disambiguation is needed in the title of a riding article, use (electoral district). If further disambiguation is needed, use (federal electoral district) or (provincial electoral district); add the jurisdiction, such as (Manitoba federal electoral district), or (Manitoba provincial electoral district), only if the federal vs. provincial distinction is still not sufficient. When federal and provincial riding names differ only in punctuation, one or both should include disambiguation in their titles as if their names were identical (e.g. Edmonton—Strathcona and Edmonton-Strathcona (provincial electoral district)). Whenever federal and provincial riding names are similar enough that they could be confused, the two articles should be linked to each other in hatnotes.

Article or redirect?

Articles are always subject to WP:Reliable sources, WP:Neutral point of view and WP:Verifiability, regardless of the topic, and the concept of "inherent notability" for geographic locations on Wikipedia is not an exemption from these content policies. While any named community is valid as a potential topic for a properly referenced article, a community is not automatically entitled to a poor-quality, unreferenced independent article solely on the basis that it exists.

Incorporated municipalities can always be referenced at least to Statistics Canada census data, and accordingly these should always have independent articles. A neighbourhood or community within an incorporated municipality, however, should only have an article independent of its parent municipality when an article can be written that meets the core content policies and guidelines. A community whose article does not meet that threshold (e.g., an unreferenced three or four line stub) should be redirected to the appropriate section in its municipality's article or to an appropriate spin-off article of the municipality (such as one on a borough, or an omnibus "Neighbourhoods in City" side article), until a properly referenced article can be written about the neighbourhood as an independent topic.

Newfoundland and Labrador

Note that Newfoundland is not a Canadian province; it is an island that forms part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. While a title in the format "Jonesville, Newfoundland", or "Smithburg, Labrador", may be created as a redirect, it is never to be the article's primary title—places in this province that require disambiguation are always to be titled in the form Place, Newfoundland and Labrador. In a few cases, places may require added disambiguation; in these instances, the preferred format is "Place, Region (e.g. Twillingate, Bonavista, Conception Bay, Placentia Bay, Labrador, etc.), Newfoundland and Labrador", not just "Place, Newfoundland" or "Place, Labrador".

The exception is for articles about events that took place before the province changed its name in 2001, for example, Newfoundland general election, 1999.

Territories

The official legal name of Canada's westernmost territory has been "Yukon" since 2003. While the Government of Yukon approved a return to the usage of "the Yukon" for certain purposes in mid-2021, the territory's official legal name of "Yukon" remains unchanged. In body text, either "Yukon" or "the Yukon" is therefore acceptable, although "Yukon" without the word the is preferred. However, Yukon-specific article, category, and list titles should always use the form without the word the.

The preferred form is "the Northwest Territories" in article text and in the titles of list articles, but geographic articles about the Northwest Territories (e.g. Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories) do not use the word the in their titles.

Population and demographics

Use of census data

Per WP:RS and WP:V, all population figures and demographics must be referenced. Although some supplementary sources may be added, the population figure and demographics from the last official Statistics Canada census is the principal definitive source for population data in articles. Do not cite unofficial population estimates such as the "Welcome to Jonesville" sign at the city limits or the local Chamber of Commerce business directory, do not perform your own statistical analysis to arrive at an original research estimate, and do not round population figures or demographics off.

Official population updates

Between censuses, properly sourced intercensal population and demographic updates from a government source such as Statistics Canada, a provincial statistical agency (such as BC Stats in British Columbia) or a formal municipal census (such as those in Alberta), may be provided in addition to the most recent federal census data. For example, as long as the figures are reliably sourced, it is acceptable for an article to say that:

In the Canada 2016 Census, the City of Vancouver had a population of 631,486 and Vancouver census metropolitan area (CMA) had a population of 2,463,431. As of 2017, the city had an estimated population of 637,083 and the CMA had an estimated population of 2,493,452.

It is not acceptable to remove the 2021 census figure such that the article's only population figure is an intercensal update—the 2021 figure must remain in the article until the results of the 2026 census are published. This applies to both the prose of the article and its infobox. Other figures are provided as a supplement to the census population figure, not as a replacement. It is also not necessary for an article to provide a continual tally of intercensal updates for every year between federal censuses—only the current year's figure needs to be provided. The updated figures can be provided in the article body, but for the sake of consistency across all municipalities, the infobox's |population= parameter should reflect the federal census figure, while its |population_blank1= parameter can be used for intercensal updates. List articles, such as List of the 100 largest municipalities in Canada by population, are only to list federal census data, and are not to be updated with off-year estimates or municipal census data regardless of sourcing.

Similarly, unless a) you know how to retrieve individual census tract data from the Statistics Canada site, or b) the place has a documented census population figure by virtue of being a designated place or a recognized population centre (urban area prior to 2011), do not give an unsourced population estimate for a neighbourhood or community within an incorporated municipality. It is preferable for an article to have no population information at all than it is to give an unsourced or poorly sourced figure.

A population figure that is provided without a valid source for the number must be removed from the article.

Metropolitan area vs. city population

Do not confuse the population of a city with the population of its census metropolitan area (CMA) or census agglomeration. While these are both valid statistics to cite in an article, they do not represent the same thing. There is no contradiction between the fact that nearly 2.5 million people live in the Vancouver CMA and the fact that only about 630,000 of those live within Vancouver's city limits, and it violates WP:NPOV to assert that the distinction is trivial or irrelevant.

Population centre

An extremely common form of editing error on Canadian-related articles is to alter data in "population centre" lists to reflect the populations of municipalities. However, municipal boundaries are not what a population centre represents—population centre data exists to measure population on the urban vs. rural distinction, and corresponds to clusters of population density rather than to boundaries of municipalities or census metropolitan areas. A place's "population centre" data may be smaller than its municipal "city limits" population, if the city includes both an urbanized core and less densely populated rural areas, or larger, if the city's urban development continues past municipal boundaries into another municipality. In fact, a municipality may not even be a population centre at all, if it does not reach an urban standard of population density or if its urban area is directly contiguous with another municipality's urban area; a community or neighbourhood within a municipality can also be a standalone population centre, if it represents a standalone cluster of urban density surrounded by non-urban areas that separate it from the rest of its municipality.

For instance, the population centre of Prince George does not encompass the entire city of Prince George, but just measures the urbanized central core while excluding less populated parts of the city such as the rural areas west of Foothills Boulevard or near the airport; the city of Mississauga is not classified as a population centre in its own right at all, but as part of the population centre of Toronto since its urban development is continuous with Toronto's; and the city of Greater Sudbury has eight distinct population centres within it, as several urbanized parts of the city are separated from each other by bands of unpopulated industrial or entirely undeveloped land.

"Population centre" lists are to precisely reflect Statistics Canada's population centre data, and are not to be altered to reflect different numbers or to add places that Statistics Canada does not classify as their own population centres.

Geography

For a geographical feature (river, mountain, valley, island, etc.) that requires disambiguation, the standard convention is "Name of Feature (Province)". Where that isn't sufficient, then choose a more specific disambiguator, such as by region (e.g. Whitefish River (Northwestern Ontario) vs. Whitefish River (Northeastern Ontario)), by parent river, or by the lake or ocean that the river empties into.

However, it is also acceptable to cover multiple topics in a single article (e.g. Black River (Ontario)) if separate articles would be too stubbish.

Do not disambiguate geographical features unnecessarily. If there is no other significant Lake Nipigon, then the one in Ontario does not need to be at "Lake Nipigon (Ontario)".

When writing articles about communities, describe and categorize them by their correct legal status and definition. That is, if Topicville is not independently incorporated, but is a part of a larger incorporated municipality, then Topicville is to be described as a community, a neighbourhood or a settlement, not a city, a town or a village.

Content organization

Canadian-related lists and templates which organize their content by province or territory are arranged in alphabetical order, not in a geographic "provinces arrayed left to right from BC first to NL last, and then the territories left to right from Yukon to Nunavut" order.

Geographic L→R order makes sense to Canadians, because the provinces and the territories happen to be arranged in nearly perfect west to east lines that seem like a logical way to organize a list or template—however, the audience for Wikipedia content is not restricted to Canadians, but also includes international readers who do not have an instinctive understanding of what geographic order the provinces happen to line up in. Lists and templates are organized for the benefit of all readers, not just those who already know that Saskatchewan is geographically located between Alberta and Manitoba, so L→R order is not an appropriate method of organizing Wikipedia content.

The territories may be combined as one list section for "Territories", in contexts where the amount of territory-related content to list isn't significant, or organized as a separate alphabetical list from the provinces if that separation is contextually important—for example, since each territory has only one senator, compared to several senators per province, {{Senate of Canada}} has a single "Territories" line to list all three territorial senators rather than a separate line for each territory, and since territorial commissioners are a different thing from provincial lieutenant governors, {{CanViceroy}} maintains separate lines for the two groups. However, if neither of these conditions applies, then the territories are to be listed in their normal place in strictly alphabetical order, not separated to the bottom of an alphabetically ordered list—for example, since there's no important contextual difference between being a radio station in a province vs. being a radio station in a territory, {{CanadaRadio}} just organizes the provinces and territories alphabetically as one group, and does not bump the territories down to a separate postscript from the provinces.

French names

Note that Wikipedia's Use English guideline does not mean that the words in an article title must invariably be in English; it means that the title needs to be what an English speaker would most likely recognize as the usual name of the subject in actual usage. For example, the Parti Québécois does not have a recognized English name—the standard usage by speakers of Canadian English is the untranslated name "Parti Québécois". On the other hand, the Parti Rhinocéros is not usually referred to in English by its official French name, but by the unofficial translation "Rhinoceros Party". In both cases, the correct title on the English Wikipedia is the name that's actually used by speakers of Canadian English to refer to the parties.

When using the French language title for an article instead of an English one, always use the proper French orthography, including accents and hyphens and French capitalization conventions, but create redirects from the appropriate alternate spellings. Similarly, when using the English title, create a redirect from the French one.

Also create redirects from any translated titles that have documented current or historical use. For instance, a translated redirect should be created from Three Rivers, Quebec, to Trois-Rivières, as the name "Three Rivers" was historically used in English. Do not, however, create a translated redirect if the translated name is not demonstrably linked to the topic—for example, Rivière-du-Loup has never been referred to in English as "Wolf River" (its historical English name was "Fraserville"), and Notre-Dame-du-Nord has never been referred to as "Our Lady of the North".

Institutions

For many current institutions (hospitals, universities, etc.) in Quebec, standard Canadian English usage is ambiguous and not clear-cut: some English speakers refer to the Université du Québec à Montréal, while others refer to the "University of Quebec at (or in) Montreal", while still others simply use the acronym UQAM (you-kam). In such cases, title the article with the proper name of the institution in French, and create redirects from any English translations that are genuinely likely to be used as alternate search or link terms. However, where there is a single standard and generally accepted English name for the institution, use that rather than the French name (e.g. National Assembly of Quebec rather than "Assemblée nationale du Québec") regardless of whether that name is "official" or not.

Places

For geographic names, again, the current practice is to reflect actual English usage. Specifically, the unaccented names Montreal, Quebec and Quebec City (as opposed to "Montréal" or "Québec") are the majority usages in English. However, usage for most smaller cities and towns in the province is less clear-cut, due in part to the lesser number of documented English references. As with institutions, some places in fact may have several competing "English" forms rather than one standard one—for example, Trois-Rivières could be referred to in English by simply maintaining the French spelling as is, by dropping the accent but keeping the hyphen ("Trois-Rivieres"), by dropping the hyphen but keeping the accent ("Trois Rivières") or by dropping both the accent and the hyphen ("Trois Rivieres"). Accordingly, for most municipal names in Quebec apart from those noted above, use the French spelling unless a clear usage consensus in favour of an alternate name (e.g. Montreal West rather than Montréal-Ouest, Mount Royal rather than Mont-Royal, etc.) is seen outside of Wikipedia.

People

People's names should reflect the spelling most correctly used in reference to that specific person, regardless of how the same name might or might not be spelled by a different person. For instance, a French-speaking politician from Quebec whose surname is Lévesque should retain the accent on their article title, even though an English-speaking hockey player from Alberta who has the same surname might drop the accent and spell it as Levesque instead. Each person should be titled with the form of the name actually used by that particular person; do not follow a blanket policy of always keeping or always dropping the accent across all people on Wikipedia who happen to possess that surname.

Artistic works

For films from Quebec that have been released in English Canada or the United States, use the title under which the film was released in the English market, but create a redirect from the original French title. For films that did not garner release under a distinct English title, use the original French title and do not rename the film with an original research translation. (For instance, Monsieur Lazhar and Incendies were both released to English markets under their original names, not under translated titles.) Wherever relevant, however, other articles (e.g. the filmographies of actors and directors, Genie Award and Canadian Screen Award articles, lists of Canadian films by year, etc.) should list both the English and French titles, with one appearing in parentheses after the other. Note, as well, that if an English title can be verified, even by a primary source such as a film streaming site, that title automatically takes precedence even if most or all of the sources actually present in the article referred to it under its original French title. The overarching concern is providing a title that an English speaker would be able to use to find the work if they wanted to view it.

Additionally, for films, the redirect from the French title should be categorized in Category:Quebec films by French title, so that users who know the films by those titles rather than the English ones still have the opportunity to find them. (Note, however, that if multiple French-title redirects exist for the same film, such as for accented and unaccented forms, it is not necessary to categorize all of them in the French titles category—categorize only the one that represents the most strictly correct French form.)

Television series from Quebec, however, are usually not exported to English-speaking markets, and thus usually have no English name. Most television series, thus, should be titled with their original French titles, and not translated into English. However, when such a series has also been seen in English markets under an English title (e.g. He Shoots, He Scores, Nic and Pic), then use the English title with a redirect from the French.

However, as with places whose names might have multiple forms, if a film or television series has more than one distinct English title (e.g. Lâcher prise, which was known as Freefall in some English markets and Let Go in others, or À tout prendre, which went into some English markets as All Things Considered and others as Take It All), then use the original French title rather than editwarring over which English title was more "definitive" than others.

Works of French literature that have been republished in English translation, similarly, should be named with the title of the English translation, with a redirect from the original French title. Works that have not been republished in an English translation should be named with their original French title.

Historic sites

Main article: Heritage conservation in Canada

Properties in Canada can be designated as being of historic, or heritage, value by different levels of government. When one is referring in an article to historic designation(s) applicable to a site, it is important to specify the specific designation(s) and to not confuse or conflate the designations (they are not interchangeable and confer different legal protections). Typically, designations are ordered international/federal/provincial/municipal rather than by date.

In Canada, we usually use the term "designated" to described a property that has been granted official heritage status. Depending on the circumstances, we can refer to a site being designated under a particular statute (e.g. the Aberdeen Pavilion is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act) or designated as a certain type of historic site (e.g. Halifax City Hall is designated a Municipally Registered Property under the Nova Scotia Heritage Property Act). We often avoid the term "listed" since it means different things in different jurisdictions (e.g. in Vancouver "listed" can mean the same thing as "designated", while in Toronto a "listed" property is one that has not been designated, but rather has been identified for potential future designation). We similarly avoid the term "protected", since some designations offer no legal protections, while some others provide limited, or appealable, protections.

Inclusion on the Canadian Register of Historic Places (CRHP) is not the same thing as being designated. The CRHP is merely an online database of sites that have otherwise been designated, and it does not confer any historic status. The CRHP is a fantastic resource and can be used as a reliable source in citations pertaining to the historic status of a site, but the main body of a Wikipedia article should never refer to a site being listed or included on the CRHP. See the essay at WP:WHATISCRHP for additional information.

Infoboxes

The following conventions apply when adding names to the infobox of a Canadian geographic article:

• Articles should follow the guidelines outlined at WP:CANSTYLE and WP:PLACES. If a particular usage is more common in English, such as "Montreal", then that name should be used throughout the article and in the article's title. In that regard, "Iqaluit" is to be used over "Frobisher Bay", despite the latter's more apparent English origin.
• The infobox name field ("name") should contain the most commonly used place name in English. This field should be at the top, and should be more prominent than entries in the alternative ("other_name"), native ("native_name") and official name ("official_name") fields. These other names should only be added if they are official and verifiable, and should be presented below the primary name, preferably in smaller type. Additionally, an official name in another language should be included only if the short form portion of the name is substantively different from the English name—such as Montreal/Montréal, Mount Royal/Mont-Royal, Greater Sudbury/Grand-Sudbury or Iqaluit/ᐃᖃᓗᐃᑦ. If the name is spelled the same in both languages, such that the only difference between the two forms is the class noun (e.g. "City of"/"Ville de") that each language attaches to it, then do not include the French name as separate information.
• Names should only be prefaced with "City of" in the "official_name" field, and then only if such usage is verifiable. “City of X” should not be used in the primary name field ("name") or other fields.
• The settlement type field should use English-language terminology such as "city", "municipality", "community", or "town". Non-English terms such as "ville" and "communauté" should be avoided.
• Place names should not be translated based on the etymological origin of the name. For example, Montréal should not be translated as "Mount Royal", and "Wetaskiwin" should not be translated as "the hills where peace was made".
• All articles on Canadian cities should use the following model for name fields:

Jasper
Specialized municipality
Municipality of Jasper

   |name = Sample
   |settlement_type = City
   |official_name = City of Sample

• All names within the nickname field ("nickname") must be appropriately referenced with reliable sources that discuss how the nickname in question is in wide use by the general population. Merely supplying examples of usage (even in mainstream media) is insufficient. Nicknames used in the infobox should not be derogatory, nor should they only reference one particular demographic aspect of the place in question (e.g. Hongcouver, Tehranto) or one particular event (as such references quickly become dated, e.g. the Megacity). The field should be limited to two or three nicknames; additional nicknames should be provided through a link to the appropriate section in List of city nicknames in Canada or to the "Name of [place]" article (if one exists) (for example, "Town, NewfieJohn, more..."). Slogans used by the municipal government or local tourism authority, although they might be encyclopedic in their own right, are not necessarily nicknames unless they are used colloquially by the general population, and should otherwise not be included in the nickname field (although consideration could be given to including them in a blank parameter of the infobox).

These conventions apply to the use of the nickname field in the article infobox. References to nicknames and slogans in the body of an article or list are subject to Wikipedia's other content policies and guidelines.

Media

Television and radio stations are always titled with their legal Industry Canada-issued call signs rather than their on-air brand names; in the Canadian context, the call sign always includes the -FM or -TV or -DT suffix (unlike in the United States, where a station only has a suffix if it's necessary to distinguish multiple stations with the same base Wxxx/Kxxx calls). There is no such thing as an -AM suffix in broadcasting—the actual legal call sign of an AM radio station is always just Cxxx. However, because of the frequent need to disambiguate them from FM or TV stations, or other things with the same acronym, Wikipedia uses the format "Cxxx (AM)" when necessary. As many readers are not familiar with this convention, a title in the format Cxxx-AM may be created as a redirect to the Cxxx or Cxxx (AM) title, but is never to be the primary title.

The brand name may, however, be created as a redirect to the call sign (e.g. MIX 99.9), a disambiguation page (e.g. Q107) or an article about the brand itself if it has a substantial history (e.g. EZ Rock, Jack FM, NRJ). The only exceptions to this are where a single radio or television network broadcasts across multiple transmitters with different call signs but no local variances in programming—for example, TVOntario, TFO, Télé-Québec or CKUA Radio Network. In such cases, all of the call signs should be redirects to a single article about the network itself.

A radio station's article may list certain notable programs that air on the station, but per WP:NOT, it is not to list the station's entire broadcast schedule. Only a service whose schedule consists primarily or entirely of programs that are themselves notable enough for independent articles, such as the CBC's national radio networks, may contain a comprehensive schedule—however, programs on local commercial radio stations are rarely notable on their own, and so listing the entire schedule of such a radio station is essentially unencyclopedic advertising. Content that describes a station's programming in greater depth is permitted, however, as long as it is properly sourced and is not just a list of hosts' names.

The call sign of a rebroadcaster should always be a redirect to its programming source, rather than an independent article, unless the call sign has a prior history (e.g. CKNC-TV, CJBR-TV) as an originating station. However, a few Canadian radio stations retain call signs with extra numeric suffixes that make them appear to be rebroadcasters (e.g. CITE-FM-1), but are in fact licensed as originating stations. Most stations with call signs of this type, however, are true rebroadcasters. If you see an article titled with such a call sign, please verify it before arbitrarily redirecting it to another article.

Newspaper articles should reflect the title as it actually appears on the newspaper's masthead. For example, The Globe and Mail, not "Globe and Mail", but National Post rather than "The National Post". If a masthead title is not unique, include the city's name in parentheses as a disambiguator (e.g. The Guardian (Charlottetown)) rather than titling the article with the unofficial form "Charlottetown Guardian". Do, however, create a redirect at the latter title format. Exclude the word "the" from the masthead title if the city's name is present in the publication's proper name (e.g. Sudbury Star, not "The Sudbury Star"; London Free Press, not "The London Free Press"), but include it if the city's name is not part of the publication's name (as in The Guardian or The Globe and Mail).

A television series with a non-unique name is disambiguated as "(TV series)"; if that isn't sufficient because another country has had a TV series of the same name, the next preferred step is "(Canadian TV series)", then "(year TV series)", then "(province TV series)" if necessary. Disambiguate TV series by network only as a last resort, as television series can be sold to other countries or even rerun in Canada on a different network than the one that first originated the program.

People

Whenever possible, people should be at the name by which they are most commonly known rather than an obscure full name. For example, the Trudeau-era Minister of Justice is at Ron Basford, not "Stanley Ronald Basford". However, as with Basford or (Henry) Perrin Beatty, do not assume that the person's usual name is necessarily their first name. In some cases (e.g. Bud Germa, Bush Dumville), their most common name may not even be either of their given names. When in doubt, research or ask WP:CWNB for assistance.

For older or less prominent political figures for whom limited sources are available, such as a person who was a backbench MP in the 1890s, it may be difficult to determine which name the person was best known under. In such cases, it is permissible to use the full name as indicated by the Parliament of Canada's website—but Wikipedia does not have an invariable requirement to precisely title-match that source for all figures. If sources can be found for which name a person actually used in their public life, use that name as the title, not the full name as listed in the parliamentary database. Occasionally the parliamentary site will provide this information for you by including an additional given name in parentheses, such as Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse—this means that his most common name, and hence his correct Wikipedia title, is "Vic" rather than "Victor" or "Victor Fredrich".

Per Canadian name#French Canadian names, if a historical personage from Quebec has a compound given name in the form Firstname-Secondname-Thirdname (e.g. Joseph-Jacques-Jean Chrétien) then the common name is automatically presumed as Thirdname unless reliable sources show differently.

For people with non-unique names, the standard hierarchy for disambiguation is as follows: occupation, Canadian occupation, provincial occupation, affiliative (e.g. political party) occupation. Only disambiguate by obscure biographical details such as the person's place of birth, years of life or not-widely-known middle name as an absolute last resort if none of these other disambiguation criteria are sufficient. Never disambiguate a person by geography alone, such as "John Smith (Canada)" or "Jane McGillicuddy (Prince Edward Island)", and never step further down the hierarchy than is necessary at the present time—as in the case of André Bachand (Progressive Conservative MP) and André Bachand (Liberal MP), base the chosen disambiguator on their current distinction, not on the fact that one of them might (see WP:CRYSTAL) re-enter politics in the future with a different political party. An article can always be moved at a later date if circumstances change.

Titles for articles about people should also not be disambiguated by municipality, instead of country or province, except as an absolute last resort—for instance, this may be necessary if two different cities in the same province have had mayors with the same name, and no middle initial is known for either one.

Postnominals

Do not place honorifics such as Hon., Dr., Fr., PC, MP or OC in the article title.

The postnominal PC, appearing directly after a politician's name in the article introduction or in the infobox header, has nothing whatsoever to do with their political party affiliation—it means "Privy Councillor", and refers to their membership in the Privy Council of Canada. A federal cabinet minister always holds the "PC" postnominal regardless of what party they are associated with, and no political party affiliation is ever denoted as a postnominal honorific. Do not "correct the party affiliation" of a cabinet minister from "PC" to some other party, because party affiliation is not what the "PC" in a postnominals template is referring to.

Capitalization

The words Aboriginal and Indigenous are capitalized when used in a Canadian context.

Capitalize the word Black when referring to groups in racial, ethnic, or cultural terms.

Politics

Terms in office

Different political offices may have slightly different rules about how the start and end of a person's term in that office are denoted. Please consult the following table for the rules in specific instances.

Office	Start date	End date	Notes
MP/MLA	Date of election or by-election	Representative who is defeated at, or retires and does not reoffer in, a general election: Date of the writ drop that commences the election in which they retire or are defeated. Representative who dies in office: Date of death. Representative who resigns from the legislature between elections: date that the resignation becomes official. Incumbent MP who is reelected to office in a new riding following a redistribution: date of the writ drop that commenced the election in which the riding name changed.	The practice for regular members of the legislature is not the same as the practice for higher-ranking officers of the legislature: the fact that a new MP/MLA has not been officially sworn in yet does not matter. Because an outgoing MP/MLA's term ends at the writ drop, the office is not held by anybody else in the interim, and the date on which the person was officially sworn in as an MP or MLA (which is not the same time or day as the official swearing-in of the first minister and cabinet) is often not reliably sourceable at all. But even on the rare occasion that an exact swearing-in date is sourceable, it is more important that we follow a consistent practice across all MPs and MLAs, and we cannot make special exceptions to treat some of them differently than others. It is not relevant if a recount or a delay means that the person's victory wasn't formally confirmed for another few days after election day — the election still took place the day it took place, and delays in counting ballots do not change the date on which the ballots were cast. The date on which an MP or MLA's resignation from the legislature becomes official is not necessarily the same day that their intention to resign was announced to the media, as an MP or MLA usually gives advance notice of their intention to resign a couple of weeks before actually departing the legislature. When ridings are redistributed, if the person's riding name changes then that sets a new office – do not simply tuck the old riding name into a footnote to the current one within a single continuous office, but start a new office field with new term and succession information. If an election victory is overturned on recount or the winner disclaims their seat before the end of the appeal period, the effect might be retroactive to election day, depending on the jurisdiction. Articles should treat the candidate as if they were never an MP/MLA after that election, but the situation should be explained in the body or a footnote.
Prime minister or premier	Date that the person is formally sworn in by the viceroy.	Date that their successor is formally sworn in by the viceroy; date of death if they die in office.	The outgoing first minister does not immediately leave office, and the incoming new one does not immediately assume the office, on election day itself; there is a transition period of one to three weeks during which the outgoing first minister is still the incumbent on a caretaker basis, and the new one is still only a first minister-designate. Under law a first minister's term is officially denoted as ending on the last full day of their leadership, regardless of the fact that the successor is sworn in several hours later during normal working hours rather than instantly at midnight — under this convention, if the new first minister is sworn in on June 13, then their predecessor's term would be denoted as ending on June 12 even though they were technically still first minister for part of June 13. However, media sources do not normally follow this convention, and consider the outgoing first minister's term as ending only at the actual moment of handover. Wikipedia consensus has settled on following the common media practice rather than the official legalese one. Articles do run the risk of being inconsistent with each other at times, however, if different articles have been edited on opposite sides of this practice; if you notice a conflict between two different articles as to the end date of a prime minister's or premier's term, check with WP:CANTALK rather than directly editwarring over it.
Party leader	Date that the person officially assumes the leadership of the party.	Date that their successor (whether convention-selected or interim) officially assumes the leadership of the party.	The leadership is not immediately handed over the exact moment the winner of the leadership convention is announced; party constitutions may vary, but normally the person's leadership becomes official somewhere between one day and a week after the date of the convention balloting itself.
Governor general or lieutenant governor	Date that the person is formally sworn in.	Date that their successor is formally sworn in; date of death if they die in office.	The date that the viceroy is formally sworn in is not the same as the date on which the identity of the new viceroy is initially announced to the media; rather, the initial announcement is virtually always made several weeks before the person actually assumes the office.
Cabinet minister	Date that the person is formally sworn in.	Cabinet minister who is succeeded by another cabinet minister, whether in a cabinet shuffle or due to a change of government in an election: date that their successor is formally sworn in. Cabinet minister who resigns from the cabinet: date that their resignation becomes official. Cabinet minister who dies in office: date of death.	Even in the event of a government's defeat in an election, outgoing cabinet ministers still hold the role in a caretaker capacity throughout the period of transition until the new ones are sworn in, so it does not matter that this may sometimes result in a person holding a cabinet position for several weeks past the end of their term as an MP or MLA; there is not even any legal requirement that a cabinet minister has to be a member of the legislature at all, so there is no conflict. Unlike the situation for MPs or MLAs who resign from the legislature, however, resignations from cabinet are much more commonly immediate rather than on a "two weeks notice" basis.
Mayor or city councillor	Date that the person is formally sworn in.	Officeholder who is replaced in a general election: date that their successor is formally sworn in. Officeholder who resigns from the position between elections: date that their resignation takes formal effect. Officeholder who dies in office: date of death.	City councils in Canada actually function more like the situation in the United States House of Representatives than in Canadian parliaments. Unlike legislatures, they typically have a longer transition period after the election, sometimes even as long as one or two full months in some cities; city councils are never "dissolved" prior to a municipal election, and the elections are scheduled by law rather than election writ; and the outgoing city councils may in fact still hold one or more "caretaker" meetings after the election. Accordingly, mayors and city councillors are never denoted as taking or leaving office immediately on election day: the exact dates of the official swearing-in ceremonies are always used for all municipal positions.

Law

Legislation

When writing an article about a piece of legislation, whether it has passed into law or not, title the article with the short name of the legislation, and not with a title in the form "Bill #". Per WP:NC-GAL, the short form name (XYZ Act) is preferred whenever possible, with the long form name (An Act to XYZ) in place as a redirect to it. (The long form name is permissible as the primary title if a short form name cannot be properly sourced, although this should virtually never be anything more than a temporary measure.) Bill numbers, however, are routinely repeated in different contexts—different legislative bodies, different sessions of the same legislative body, etc.—and thus a bill number is almost never an unambiguous or unique name. When a piece of legislation is commonly referred to by its bill number, a redirect or disambiguation page should be created, like at Bill C-51.

When disambiguation is needed in a title, add only the jurisdiction, such as in Heritage Property Act (Saskatchewan).

In Canada, per the McGill Guide, titles of acts are italicized.

Case law

Names of court cases should generally follow the McGill Guide. In particular:

• case names should be in italic;
• parties should be separated with "v" for decisions given in English or "c" for decisions given in French;
• omit punctuation for common abbreviations in names like "Inc." or "Ltd.";
• for government bodies, write the jurisdiction followed by the body in parentheses
  • example: Baker v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration);
• use parentheses after the name for other descriptions of parties like in "Doe (Estate of)", and for cities like in "Edmonton (City)".

Elections

The naming conventions for election articles are as follows:

• Federal: "YYYY Canadian federal election"
• Provincial or territorial: "YYYY Province/Territory general election"

Although not all of the older municipal election articles have been converted yet, WikiProject Canada's current consensus around municipal elections is that they should be organized into one merged article per county or region, with only "independent cities" (i.e. cities that constitute their own independent census divisions, and are not part of any "upper tier" of municipal government) given their own standalone articles. The naming convention for a standalone article is "YYYY City (comma-province/territory if necessary) municipal election"; merged articles that cover multiple municipalities are named in the format "YYYY Jurisdiction (county, province, territory, etc.) municipal elections". School board elections are never given their own separate articles, but are discussed only in municipal election articles.

In Toronto, current practice is to use the main "municipal election" article primarily to cover the city council races, while spinning off a separate "mayoral election" for the citywide mayoral race. Generally speaking, most other Canadian cities do not require this treatment, however: it is restricted in principle to the largest metropolitan cities, although to date the editors who work on municipal election articles in Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary or Edmonton have not actually pursued this approach. In those other five cities, the mayoral spinoff approach would potentially be valid as well, although editors who wish to pursue it are requested, in advance of going ahead with it, to open a consensus discussion at WP:CANTALK to determine whether adequate editorial will actually exists or not to move in that direction. Outside of those six cities, however, keep the mayoral race in the main municipal election article. This is done in Toronto because the amount of work that editors have been willing to actively put into the articles pushes them into "long enough to warrant spinoffs" territory; however, the other cities have never really attracted the same level of hypercommitment, and instead their municipal election articles still consist almost entirely of results tables with very little added context.

Federal or provincial by-elections do not each get their own separate standalone article, but rather are discussed as subsections of a larger common article such as By-elections to the 41st Canadian Parliament. A municipal by-election, similarly, should normally be covered as a followup subsection of the previous regular municipal election's article rather than as its own standalone topic; however, an exception may be made for a municipal by-election which can demonstrate a significant claim to being more notable than usual, such as the school board controversy that caused the 2017 Vancouver municipal by-election to include the complete election of an entirely new school board.

Currency

Main page: WP:$

For currency values in articles on Canadian topics, the Canadian dollar is considered the default currency where an unprefixed dollar sign is used e.g. $123.45. However, the currency should be identified with the first appearance of a dollar amount for benefit of international readers. This can be specified as $123.45 (CAD) or some other statement indicating that dollar amounts are Canadian. Currencies of other nations in Canadian articles should always be identified, especially the United States dollar, to avoid confusion (e.g. US$45.67).

For Wikipedia articles not specifically on Canadian subjects, the Canadian dollar should be identified either in ISO 4217 format (e.g. CAD 123.45) or as CA$ (e.g. CA$123.45). Avoid use of other available prefixes such as C$ (also the symbol for the Nicaraguan córdoba), CAN$, Can$, Cdn$ or CDN$ since there is no consensus for these. Do not use the abbreviation CAD$, as both "D" and "$" are symbols for "dollar".

The {{iso4217|CAD}} template with "CAD" parameter may be used to format Canadian dollar amounts in ISO 4217 format and provide a link to the Canadian dollar article for reference.

External style guides

Further information: List of style guides, Canadian English, and List of Canadian English dictionaries

Editors are encouraged to familiarize themselves with modern editions of other guides to style and usage, which may cover details not included here. Those that have most influenced the Canadian Wikipedia Manual of Style are:

• "The Canadian style: a guide to writing and editing : : S2-158/1996E". Government of Canada Publications. Jul 1, 2002.
  • "Writing resources—Writing guidelines – Collection of Canadian language resources". Canada.ca. Translation Bureau - Government of Canada.
• "TERMIUM Plus -Writing Tips Plus – Writing Tools". Canada.ca. Translation Bureau - Government of Canada.
• Canada. Secretary of State (1997). The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing. Dundurn Press. ISBN 978-1-55488-317-2.
• "Writing and Editing Style Guides". The Canadian Press. Jul 14, 2023.
• The Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Jan 1, 2004. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195418163.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-541816-3.
• Virag, Karen Jean. Editing Canadian English. ISBN 978-0-9869456-1-8.
• McFarlane, J.A.; Clements, W. (1998). The Globe and Mail Style Book: A Guide to Language and Usage. McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-3337-7.
• Adams, Rob Colter (2005), Grammar to go: the portable A-Zed guide to Canadian usage, House of Anansi Press, ISBN 978-0-88784-723-3, archived from the original on 11 April 2023
• Boberg, Charles (2010). The English Language in Canada: Status, History and Comparative Analysis. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-78981-6. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023.
• Labov, William; Ash, Sharon & Boberg, Charles (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-016746-7. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023.