Canada Open Data Catalog Search (open.canada.ca) – Dataset Metadata & Download Links

Search the Government of Canada Open Government Portal and export clean dataset metadata, plus a direct download link for every CSV, JSON, XML, GeoJSON, API or map resource. On 29 Sep 2026 the portal listed 47,948 records, 36,000 of them under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Filter by keyword, department, file format, keyword tag and last-modified date.

• ✅ Uses the portal's official CKAN API. No scraping, no key
• ✅ Bilingual titles and keywords, plus portal links in EN and FR
• ✅ OGL-only filter on by default, so you only get records you can reuse commercially with attribution
• ✅ Handles paging for you (tested to 230+ records in one run)
• ✅ Plain-text descriptions (HTML removed). Personal contact fields (maintainer email, author and similar) are left out

Who it's for

• Data engineers and AI/RAG builders who need a list of Canadian government datasets and their file URLs to ingest
• Analysts and researchers looking for "every StatCan or CMHC CSV about housing", or anything updated since a given date
• Data-catalog, newsletter and monitoring services that track new or changed federal datasets (sort by Recently updated and schedule it)

Input

Field	What it does	Default
query	Free-text search, same as the portal search box	housing (prefill)
organizations	Portal organization IDs, e.g. statcan, cmhc-schl, hc-sc, nrcan-rncan, eccc, ircc, tc	all
formats	Keep datasets with at least one resource in any of these formats (e.g. CSV, JSON, GeoJSON, SHP, API)	["CSV"] (prefill)
keywords	Required English keyword tags	none
modifiedSince	Metadata updated on or after this date	none
sort	Relevance, Recently updated, Recently created, or Title A–Z	Relevance
onlyOpenGovernmentLicence	Skip anything that isn't OGL-Canada	on
includeResources	Add the resources array (name, format, language, URL, last modified)	on
maxItems	Hard cap on results (and on cost)	100

Example: "What did Statistics Canada update this month, in CSV?"

{ "organizations": ["statcan"], "formats": ["CSV"], "modifiedSince": "2026-09-01",
  "sort": "metadata_modified desc", "maxItems": 500 }

Output (real record, live test on 29 Sep 2026, resources shortened)

{
  "datasetId": "ad17c1fe-ae10-45c3-8e8d-2dd69cc55759",
  "title": "Preliminary housing starts",
  "titleFr": "Données provisoires sur les mises en chantier",
  "description": "Preliminary housing starts in census metropolitan areas, urban centres of 10,000 and over, and all areas, seasonally adjusted at annual rates.",
  "organization": "Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation",
  "organizationId": "cmhc-schl",
  "keywords": ["CMHC", "preliminary housing starts"],
  "frequency": "monthly",
  "metadataModified": "2026-09-16T15:16:46",
  "licence": "Open Government Licence - Canada",
  "portalUrl": "https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/ad17c1fe-ae10-45c3-8e8d-2dd69cc55759",
  "resourceCount": 15,
  "formats": ["CSV", "HTML", "XML"],
  "resources": [{ "name": "Census metropolitan areas", "format": "CSV", "language": ["en"],
                  "url": "https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/tbl/csv/34100147-eng.zip",
                  "lastModified": "2026-09-16T15:16:46" }],
  "attribution": "Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada."
}

The full field list is in .actor/dataset_schema.json, and more real rows are in sample_output.json.

Pricing

Pay per result. You're charged once for each dataset record written. maxItems and Apify's maximum cost per run are both honoured.

Data source, licence and privacy

• Source: Open Government Portal CKAN API, https://open.canada.ca/data/api/3/action/package_search.
• Portal metadata and OGL datasets are under the Open Government Licence – Canada (https://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada). The licence of each record is in the licence field. Keep onlyOpenGovernmentLicence on unless you check other licences yourself.
• The Actor returns metadata and links only. It doesn't download or re-host the files. Contact and maintainer fields are left out on purpose.
• Unofficial tool. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by the Government of Canada.