# Canada Recalls & Safety Alerts – Health Canada, CFIA, TC (`loudtzu/health-canada-recalls`) Actor

Government of Canada recalls and safety alerts (food, consumer products, vehicles, drugs, medical devices) from official open data. Filter by agency, category, class and date.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/loudtzu/health-canada-recalls.md
- **Developed by:** [Travis M](https://apify.com/loudtzu) (community)
- **Categories:** Business, Other
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$3.00 / 1,000 recall notices

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Canada Recalls & Safety Alerts (Health Canada, CFIA, Transport Canada)

### What it does

Downloads the Government of Canada **Recalls and Safety Alerts** open data feed (one JSON file, ~34,000 notices, updated continually) and returns clean, filtered rows, newest first. One request per run; it does not scrape web pages.

Source: [Recalls and Safety Alerts on open.canada.ca](https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/d38de914-c94c-429b-8ab1-8776c31643e3) (English and French feeds).

### Who it's for

Retailers, importers and distributors monitoring product recalls; food-safety and QA teams; insurers and fleet managers (vehicle recalls); medtech/pharma compliance; news and alert apps. Run it on a schedule with `updatedFrom` to get only new notices.

### Input

| Key | Notes |
|---|---|
| `language` | `en` (default) or `fr` |
| `organization` | contains, e.g. `CFIA`, `TC`, `Medical devices` |
| `category` | contains, e.g. `Food`, `Car` |
| `recallClass` | contains, e.g. `Class 1`, `Type II` |
| `issue` | contains, e.g. `Listeria` |
| `keyword` | title or product contains |
| `updatedFrom` / `updatedTo` | YYYY-MM-DD |
| `includeArchived` | default `false` |
| `maxItems` | default 100 (max 50,000) |

Example: `{"organization": "CFIA", "updatedFrom": "2026-10-01"}`

### Output

`id`, `title`, `url`, `organization`, `product`, `issue`, `category`, `recallClass`, `whatToDo`, `lastUpdated`, `archived`, `source`, `licence`. Blank and `--` values become `null`.

### Privacy

The feed has no dedicated personal-data columns, but its free text does contain contact details. About 956 notices include email addresses (some at personal webmail like gmail or hotmail), and about 1,080 include phone numbers. These are mostly company recall contacts, but some belong to sole traders. This Actor therefore:

- replaces **every email address and phone number** with `[redacted]` in `whatToDo`, `issue`, `category` and `organization` (government contacts too)
- in `title` and `product`, redacts emails and clearly formatted phone numbers (e.g. `613-555-0000`), but keeps bare digit runs because they are almost always part numbers, lot numbers or UPCs
- passes through untouched only `id`, `url`, `source` and `licence`

On the Oct 16, 2026 feed, 1,308 notices had text redacted. Afterwards no email addresses were left (only the product name `Merlin@Home`) and no phone-formatted numbers. Contact names written into free text without an email or phone (e.g. "contact John at the store") are not detected. For full contact instructions, follow the official `url`.

### Pricing

**Price: $0.003 per result, no start fee** (pay per event, one result = one notice). 1,000 notices cost $3.00. All ~19,800 current (non-archived) notices cost about $59.40, so use date filters or a schedule with `updatedFrom` to get only new ones.

### Licence and terms

- **Licence:** [Open Government Licence – Canada](https://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada), which allows use "including for commercial purposes" with attribution. Every row carries the attribution.
- **Automated access:** the feed is a published open-data file under `/sites/default/files/`. recalls-rappels.canada.ca robots.txt does not disallow that path (it blocks only admin, user and search pages). No terms ban downloading open data automatically.
- Independent; not endorsed by the Government of Canada.

### Limits

- Freshness matches the government feed. Fields are summaries; follow `url` for the full notice.

# Actor input Schema

## `language` (type: `string`):

Source feed language.

## `organization` (type: `string`):

e.g. CFIA, TC, Medical devices, Consumer product safety.

## `category` (type: `string`):

e.g. Food, Car, Household items.

## `recallClass` (type: `string`):

e.g. Class 1, Type II.

## `issue` (type: `string`):

e.g. Listeria, Electrical.

## `keyword` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive.

## `updatedFrom` (type: `string`):

YYYY-MM-DD

## `updatedTo` (type: `string`):

YYYY-MM-DD

## `includeArchived` (type: `boolean`):

Archived notices are excluded by default.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Newest first.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "language": "en",
  "includeArchived": false,
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `recalls` (type: `string`):

All notices returned by the run, in the 'overview' table view.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("loudtzu/health-canada-recalls").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("loudtzu/health-canada-recalls").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call loudtzu/health-canada-recalls --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,loudtzu/health-canada-recalls"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/hIJuDQygJDbY3QOrx/builds/drqacDMqXSILA7Vzs/openapi.json