We separate official-source facts, local search results and practical guidance. A result is useful only when its coverage, source and limitations are clear.
Sources and record matching
Research starts with the responsible government authority. Where a reusable dataset exists, records are identified by stable official identifiers rather than a business name alone. Missing fields remain missing; they are not inferred from similarly named entities.
Normalization can help find accents, punctuation or name variants. A similar match still needs review against the legal name, identifier and jurisdiction. Search ranking is not a business-quality score.
Editorial review and uncertainty
Guides answer a distinct task, cite official references and distinguish general information from jurisdiction-specific rules. English and Canadian French versions are maintained together.
A verification date records when the cited guidance was reviewed, not when a government changed its rules. A synchronization date describes an import, not a guarantee that every filing is current. When evidence is insufficient, the page or numeric estimate remains restricted.
Limited Québec permit-holder data
A separate commercially permitted RACJ dataset adds legal-person permit-holder observations for Québec retail alcohol permits. We select NEQs beginning with 11, deduplicate by NEQ, and index holder and establishment labels. We omit street addresses and do not infer incorporation jurisdiction, current corporate registration status or name availability. The weekly source is distinct from the full REQ enterprise dataset.
Regional office filters and licensed local observations
Every province and territory can be searched for federal corporations with a filed office in that location. This is a geographic view of the federal dataset, not evidence of provincial incorporation. The federal source uses the legacy code NF for Newfoundland and Labrador.
Separate licensed observations cover selected Calgary and Toronto municipal licences, B.C. liquor establishments, New Brunswick vehicle dealerships and Nova Scotia on-highway dealers. These are limited programmes. Counts refer to source observations, not deduplicated companies. The Nova Scotia list is dated July 1, 2026; published update dates and import/check dates remain distinct.
Full provincial and territorial corporate registers are not generally copied here. Missing permissions, stale files and poor-quality sources remain explicit gaps. Personal owner/contact/street fields are excluded. No new mass-indexable profile pages are created for licence records.