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2026

Open Government Licence - Canada

Also known as OGL-Canada-2.0, Open Government Licence - Canada 2.0.

Commercial use
allowed
Share alike
not required
Attribution
required (keep the copyright and license notices)
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Write this as a license text (needs an account) DALICC reads the model above and writes what it permits, requires and prohibits in plain English. Without an account, the Text download above writes the model out from the vocabulary.

Canonical URI https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada

Permissions

  • Change license by library convention Library convention: family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.

    Duties

    • Use a compliant license by library convention Library convention: family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing. Choosing a replacement license that stays compliant with the terms of the original license.
  • Charge distribution fee from the text Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.
  • Charge license fee from the text Charging a fee for granting someone a license to the work.
  • Commercial use from the text The text says: "Using Information under this licence * Use of any Information indicates your acceptance of the terms below. * The Information Provider grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the Information, including for commercial purposes, subject to the terms below." Using the work to generate income, directly or indirectly, for example by selling it or by using it in advertising.
  • Derivative works from the text Distributing an adaptation of the work and making it available to the public.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text The text says: "You must, where you do any of the above: * Acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence. * If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, or if you are using Information from several information providers and multiple attributions are not practical for your product or application, you must use the following attribution statement: Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada." Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Derive from the text Creating a new work from the work, such as a translation, adaptation or arrangement of it or of a part of it.
  • Display from the text Showing the work to the public without making a copy the viewer keeps.
  • Distribute from the text Providing copies of the work to the public or to anyone else.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text The text says: "You must, where you do any of the above: * Acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence. * If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, or if you are using Information from several information providers and multiple attributions are not practical for your product or application, you must use the following attribution statement: Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada." Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Grant use from the text Granting third parties the right to use the work.
  • Modified works from the text Distributing a modified version of the work that does not amount to a new, derivative work.
  • Modify from the text Altering the work, for example by updating it, without creating a new work; an alteration that creates a new work is Derive.
  • No-warranty notice from the text Attaching a notice that the work is provided without any warranty.
  • Present from the text Performing the work in public, including by broadcast or other communication to the public.
  • Reproduce from the text Making copies of the work in any form.

Prohibitions

  • Promote from the text Not permitted: Promote. The text says: "Exemptions This licence does not grant you any right to use: * Personal Information; * third party rights the Information Provider is not authorized to license; * the names, crests, logos, or other official symbols of the Information Provider; and * Information subject to other intellectual property rights, including patents, trade-marks and official marks." Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.

License-wide duties

This license states no duties that apply to the work as a whole.

What applies by default

The statements above are the library's reading of this license: each is marked with the sentence it rests on, or as a library convention where the text is not explicit. The statements below are the ones the DALICC reasoner supplies for acts the license says nothing about, from the default rules of the dependency graph it reasons with. Each one names the legal source it rests on. None of it is in the record.

No default rule of that graph reaches this license: it speaks about every act the rules are about.

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

The Information is licensed “as is”, and the Information Provider excludes all representations, warranties, obligations, and liabilities, whether express or implied, to the maximum extent permitted by law. The Information Provider is not liable for any errors or omissions in the Information, and will not under any circumstances be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or other loss, injury or damage caused by its use or otherwise arising in connection with this licence or the Information, even if specifically advised of the possibility of such loss, injury or damage.

Info

Target asset types
Creative work (i.e. text, picture, sound, movie), Dataset, Software
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
https://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada
Legal code
https://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher
Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada
Attribution name
Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada
SPDX identifier
OGL-Canada-2.0 on the SPDX license list
DALICC identifier
OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada

This record is published under CC BY 4.0. Credit it as: DALICC License Library, DALICC - Verein zur Förderung der Rechtssicherheit in der Datenbewirtschaftung, https://dalicc.net, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The license it describes belongs to its publisher.

Use this license

Everything below is generated from this record. Replace the example address with the address of your own work.

JSON sidecar 

{
  "license-uri": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada",
  "license-title": "Open Government Licence - Canada",
  "spdx-id": "OGL-Canada-2.0",
  "attribution": "Copyright (c) [year] [copyright holder]",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle 

@prefix cc: <http://creativecommons.org/ns#> .

<https://example.org/my-work>
    cc:license <https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada> .

RDF, JSON-LD 

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada"
  }
}

HTML attribution 

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada" rel="license">Open Government Licence - Canada</a>.</p>

This license asks for attribution, so the credit line is part of it.

Badge DALICC badge for Open Government Licence - Canada

Markdown 

[![License: Open Government Licence - Canada](https://dalicc.net/license-library/OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada)

HTML 

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/OpenGovernmentLicenceCanada/badge.svg" alt="License: Open Government Licence - Canada"></a>

Review

Status
Reviewed against the license text
Last checked
2026-09-15
Reviewer
Giray Havur
Verdict
corrected during the review
Record changed since this review
yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings
16 recorded, 4 applied to the record, 1 proposed, 2 settled in a later version

The record models version 2.0 of the Canadian Open Government Licence, confirmed from the Versioning section of the text. The model is the same block the UK Open Government Licence record carries, which fits, since the two documents say almost the same thing. Applied: the SPDX identifier OGL-Canada-2.0, the licence-notice duty and the modified-works permission. The share-alike and add-statement prohibitions are unsupported and proposed for removal.

14 findings

  • minor Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

    The record carried no SPDX identifier although its title is word for word the SPDX name of OGL-Canada-2.0 and its cc:legalcode is the SPDX seeAlso URL. The text confirms the version: "This is version 2.0 of the Open Government Licence - Canada." Added.

  • minor Rubric 1 dct:alternative proposed

    The record has no dct:alternative, so keyword search finds it only by its exact title. Proposed.

  • info Rubric 2 odrl:target none

    dalicc:CreativeWork, dcmitype:Dataset and dcmitype:Software. The definition of Information is broad, "information resources protected by copyright or other information that is offered for use under the terms of this licence", so no asset type is excluded. The family-rule baseline flags the software type; here it is defensible rather than certain.

  • info Rubric 3 odrl:permission none

    The permissions follow the freedoms list: "Copy, modify, publish, translate, adapt, distribute or otherwise use the Information in any medium, mode or format for any lawful purpose." Commercial use is express in the grant, "including for commercial purposes", so cc:CommercialUse and the two fee permissions are supported.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    dalicc:ModifiedWorks was missing although the freedoms list names modify, adapt and distribute in one sentence, so distributing a modified version is plainly granted. Added, which also aligns the record with OpenDataLicenceAgreement, the record of the same text issued by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

  • info Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition none

    dalicc:promote is supported twice over: the Exemptions list excludes "the names, crests, logos, or other official symbols of the Information Provider" and trade marks and official marks, and the Non-endorsement section forbids any use that suggests official status or endorsement.

  • major Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

    The licence requires two things and the record modelled one: "Acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence." cc:Notice was missing. Added next to cc:Attribution on the cc:DerivativeWorks and odrl:distribute permissions.

  • info Rubric 6 dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer none

    dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer holds both paragraphs of the No Warranty section verbatim, the second of which is the liability exclusion. The Exemptions list, which carves out personal information and third-party rights, is not carried anywhere.

  • info Rubric 7 cc:jurisdiction none

    dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:perpetual match the grant, "a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence". The licence adds "This licence is governed by the laws of the province of Ontario and the applicable laws of Canada" and puts the forum in Ontario or the Federal Court, which the model has no field for: cc:jurisdiction records the scope of the grant, not the governing law. Worth noting for a Canadian record, where a reader may expect the country.

  • info Rubric 7 cc:attributionName none

    cc:attributionName and dct:publisher say "Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada". The current text says His Majesty the King, the wording having changed with the accession in 2022. Cosmetic, and the licence itself is unchanged; left alone so that the record is not edited for a reason that has nothing to do with its terms.

  • gap Rubric 8 record none

    The exemptions list, the automatic end of the rights on breach and the reservation of official symbols have no terms. Proposed terms: dalicc:exemptedMaterial, dalicc:terminationOnBreach.

  • info Rubric 9 record none

    The consistency check reports no conflict, before and after the corrections.

  • info Rubric 10 record none

    the review of duplicates (see the review method, docs/LICENSE_REVIEW.md section 3) flagged one identical signature across this record, the UK Open Government Licence and the Open Supreme Court Licence. For the UK and Canadian Open Government Licences that is nearly right, the two texts being close relatives; the differences that remain, the UK exemptions list and the Canadian choice of law, are outside the model anyway. The stronger finding is inside the Canadian pair: this record and OpenDataLicenceAgreement carry the same text and were modelled differently, and after the review they agree except for the two prohibitions proposed for removal here.

  • major Rubric 10 record applied

    Standard-license addition of 2026-09-15, decision 9: the record was corrected against its new siblings and versioned. The review's finding on family consistency: the record prohibited cc:ShareAlike and dalicc:addStatement without support from the text, which prescribes the attribution wording, and it carried no dct:alternative at all, so it could not be found by searching for its SPDX identifier OGL-Canada-2.0.

Settled in version 2 (2)

  • settled odrl:prohibition

    cc:ShareAlike is modelled as a prohibition. The licence says nothing that forbids the licensee from placing an adaptation under a share-alike licence, and in ODRL a prohibition asserts that the licensee must not do the act. Proposed for removal, together with the identical statements in the UK Open Government Licence and the Open Supreme Court Licence.

  • settled odrl:prohibition

    dalicc:addStatement is modelled as a prohibition, which the vocabulary reads as a duty to pass the licence on unchanged. The licence imposes no such condition. Proposed for removal.

Report an issue The review record as JSON The review checks the model against the license text. It is not legal advice.

History

This license model has 2 versions. Version 2 is the one served today; every earlier version keeps its own address, so a conclusion drawn from one of them can still be checked against it.

  1. Version 2 current2026-09-24 Giray Havur

    The content review of 2026-09-15 added 1 identification detail and 1 permission, changed 2 permissions and recorded the review state. Later changes brought it in line with its family and its text in the verification of 2026-09-15, permitted relicensing with the notice as a duty, recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on and named the license the record itself is published under.

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    17 changes

    • added dalicc:reviewStatus dalicc:Reviewed

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • added dalicc:reviewedOn "2026-09-15"^^xsd:date

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • changed permission cc:DerivativeWorks with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice]

      was permission cc:DerivativeWorks with duties [cc:Attribution]

      Review finding The licence requires two things and the record modelled one: "Acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence." cc:Notice was missing. Added next to cc:Attribution on the cc:DerivativeWorks and odrl:distribute permissions.

    • added permission dalicc:ModifiedWorks

      Review finding dalicc:ModifiedWorks was missing although the freedoms list names modify, adapt and distribute in one sentence, so distributing a modified version is plainly granted. Added, which also aligns the record with OpenDataLicenceAgreement, the record of the same text issued by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

    • changed permission odrl:distribute with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice]

      was permission odrl:distribute with duties [cc:Attribution]

      Review finding dalicc:ModifiedWorks was missing although the freedoms list names modify, adapt and distribute in one sentence, so distributing a modified version is plainly granted. Added, which also aligns the record with OpenDataLicenceAgreement, the record of the same text issued by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

    • added spdx:licenseId "OGL-Canada-2.0"

      Review finding The record carried no SPDX identifier although its title is word for word the SPDX name of OGL-Canada-2.0 and its cc:legalcode is the SPDX seeAlso URL. The text confirms the version: "This is version 2.0 of the Open Government Licence - Canada." Added.

    • added dct:alternative "OGL-Canada-2.0"

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency: the record prohibited cc:ShareAlike and dalicc:addStatement without support from the text, which prescribes the attribution wording, and it carried no dct:alternative at all, so it could not be found by searching for its SPDX identifier OGL-Canada-2.0.

    • added dct:alternative "Open Government Licence - Canada 2.0"

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency: the record prohibited cc:ShareAlike and dalicc:addStatement without support from the text, which prescribes the attribution wording, and it carried no dct:alternative at all, so it could not be found by searching for its SPDX identifier OGL-Canada-2.0.

    • removed prohibition cc:ShareAlike

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency: the record prohibited cc:ShareAlike and dalicc:addStatement without support from the text, which prescribes the attribution wording, and it carried no dct:alternative at all, so it could not be found by searching for its SPDX identifier OGL-Canada-2.0.

    • removed prohibition dalicc:addStatement

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency: the record prohibited cc:ShareAlike and dalicc:addStatement without support from the text, which prescribes the attribution wording, and it carried no dct:alternative at all, so it could not be found by searching for its SPDX identifier OGL-Canada-2.0.

    • added permission dalicc:ChangeLicense with duties [dalicc:compliantLicense]

      Manual edit Permit relicensing on permissive licences; the notice clause is a duty, not a bar. Library convention 15: a licence that asks for no reciprocity and no source code asks only that the notice travels with the copy, which is a duty on the acts it governs and not a bar on putting the copy under other terms. dalicc:ChangeLicense is therefore a permission here, and the prohibition the record carried before is removed. The text reads: "The Information Provider grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the Information, including for commercial purposes, subject to the terms below." The permission carries the dalicc:compliantLicense duty, as Apache-2.0 does, because the notice has to survive the relicensing.

    • changed permission cc:CommercialUse

      was permission cc:CommercialUse

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "Using Information under this licence * Use of any Information indicates your acceptance of the terms below. * The Information Provider grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the Information, including for commercial purposes, subject to the terms below."

    • changed permission cc:DerivativeWorks with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice]

      was permission cc:DerivativeWorks with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice]

      Manual edit Its duty cc:Notice quotes "You must, where you do any of the above: * Acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence. * If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, or if you are using Information from several information providers and multiple attributions are not practical for your product or application, you must use the following attribution statement: Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada."

    • changed permission dalicc:ChangeLicense with duties [dalicc:compliantLicense]

      was permission dalicc:ChangeLicense with duties [dalicc:compliantLicense]

      Manual edit The statement is marked as a library convention, family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing: the text does not state it in as many words. Its duty dalicc:compliantLicense is marked as a library convention, family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing.

    • changed permission odrl:distribute with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice]

      was permission odrl:distribute with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice]

      Manual edit Its duty cc:Notice quotes "You must, where you do any of the above: * Acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence. * If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, or if you are using Information from several information providers and multiple attributions are not practical for your product or application, you must use the following attribution statement: Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada."

    • changed prohibition dalicc:promote

      was prohibition dalicc:promote

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "Exemptions This licence does not grant you any right to use: * Personal Information; * third party rights the Information Provider is not authorized to license; * the names, crests, logos, or other official symbols of the Information Provider; and * Information subject to other intellectual property rights, including patents, trade-marks and official marks."

    • added dct:license <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>

      Manual edit Every record is published under CC BY 4.0. cc:license names the record DALICC keeps of that licence; dct:license now names it by the address Creative Commons publishes it at, so that a consumer matching the canonical IRI finds it.

  2. Version 1

    The version this model had before the content review of 2026-09-15.

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Every change names the reason behind it: a finding of the content review, one of its library-wide decisions, the metadata that review wrote onto every record, or a hand edit. None of it is legal advice.

Jurisdiction ports and editions

1 record adapts this license to another country's law or reissue it under another name. Each has its own record; they are listed here because they belong to the same family, not because they say the same. See port and edition in the glossary.

1 jurisdiction port

Nothing on this page is legal advice. What a license means is decided by its text; ask a legal advisor before you rely on it.