Canada Open Data Catalog Scraper

Free-plan limit: Apify free-plan runs can return at most 5 dataset records per run from this Actor, even if you request more.

Search the official Canada Open Government catalog and export bilingual dataset metadata, publisher details, licenses, topics, resource formats, and download URLs for research, discovery, data inventories, and monitoring.

This Actor reads the Government of Canada's public CKAN catalog directly. It does not download the attached datasets themselves; each output item describes one catalog dataset and, when enabled, includes its resource links.

What it extracts

Field	Description
datasetId, catalogUrl, apiUrl	Stable UUID and official catalog/API links
title, titleEn, titleFr	Selected-language and bilingual titles
description, descriptionEn, descriptionFr	Selected-language and bilingual descriptions
publisher, publisherSlug	Publishing government organization
subjects, keywords*, collection, datasetType	Search and taxonomy metadata
licenseId, licenseTitle, licenseUrl	Reuse-license metadata
datePublished, metadataCreated, metadataModified	Catalog dates and timestamps
resourceFormats, resourceCount	Available formats and resource total
resources	File/service IDs, names, URLs, formats, languages, size, and DataStore status

When to use it

Use this Actor to discover Canadian public datasets, build a data catalog, monitor newly modified records, find downloadable CSV/JSON/GeoJSON resources, or feed structured catalog metadata into an AI agent. It is not a file-content scraper, geocoder, or authenticated government registry client.

Input

Input	Default	Description
query	climate change	Keyword or CKAN search expression. Set to an empty string only when using exact IDs.
datasetIds	[]	Exact dataset UUIDs to retrieve in addition to search results.
language	en	en or fr for the selected-language fields and links.
organization	empty	Case-insensitive publisher name or organization-slug filter.
resourceFormats	[]	Keep datasets with at least one listed format, such as CSV or JSON.
modifiedAfter	empty	ISO date/timestamp lower bound, such as 2025-01-01.
sortBy	relevance	relevance, modified_desc, modified_asc, or title_asc.
includeResources	true	Include resource-level download metadata.
maxResults	20	Maximum records and result events, from 1 to 10,000.

Keyword search:

{
  "query": "wildfire",
  "language": "en",
  "resourceFormats": ["CSV", "JSON"],
  "modifiedAfter": "2024-01-01",
  "sortBy": "modified_desc",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Exact dataset lookup:

{
  "query": "",
  "datasetIds": ["2d90548d-50ef-4802-91f8-c59c5cf68251"],
  "language": "fr",
  "maxResults": 1
}

Run through the Apify API:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_ACTOR_ID/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"housing","maxResults":10}'

For production integrations, send the Apify token in an authorization header instead of a URL.

Output example

{
  "datasetId": "09ffaeb5-ec8f-5bb5-bdcb-3436ccf26f58",
  "title": "Climatic Regions",
  "titleEn": "Climatic Regions",
  "titleFr": "Régions climatiques",
  "publisher": "Natural Resources Canada | Ressources naturelles Canada",
  "publisherSlug": "nrcan-rncan",
  "subjects": ["nature_and_environment", "science_and_technology"],
  "keywords": ["climate", "meteorological data", "meteorology", "weather"],
  "licenseId": "ca-ogl-lgo",
  "licenseTitle": "Open Government Licence - Canada",
  "metadataModified": "2022-03-14T19:51:11.728358",
  "resourceCount": 4,
  "resourceFormats": ["JPG", "PDF"],
  "catalogUrl": "https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/09ffaeb5-ec8f-5bb5-bdcb-3436ccf26f58",
  "resources": [
    {
      "resourceId": "4ec05161-60d1-4fc9-9e7c-487798c19b82",
      "name": "Download the English JPG through HTTP",
      "format": "JPG",
      "url": "https://ftp.geogratis.gc.ca/pub/nrcan_rncan/raster/atlas_3_ed/eng/environment/climate/030.jpg",
      "language": ["en", "fr"],
      "sizeBytes": 1134541,
      "dataStoreActive": false,
      "lastModified": "2017-01-26T11:25:44.012952"
    }
  ]
}

The default dataset contains homogeneous dataset records. The OUTPUT key-value-store record contains the run outcome (DATA, EMPTY, REJECTED, or FAILED), counts, source URL, warnings, and completion time.

Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing. These are the current Apify Store event prices:

Event	Price (USD)	When it is charged
apify-default-dataset-item	FREE: $0.02; BRONZE: $0.019; SILVER: $0.018; GOLD: $0.015; PLATINUM: $0.015; DIAMOND: $0.015	Canada dataset record — One validated Canada Open Government catalog dataset record written to the default dataset.
apify-actor-start	$0.005	Actor Start — Charged when the Actor starts running. Number of events charged depends on Actor memory (one event per GB, minimum one event). — Charged once per run.

Apify platform usage for this Actor run is included alongside the event prices above; no separate per-run platform-usage fee is passed to users.

This covers Apify platform usage for this Actor run. Other Apify products or usage outside this Actor run may still follow your account plan.

Reliability and limits

• Uses the official, unauthenticated Canada Open Government CKAN GET API.
• Retries bounded 429, server, timeout, and network failures; no proxy is normally required.
• Deduplicates exact-ID and search overlap by dataset UUID before writing.
• Scans up to 10× maxResults (minimum 500, maximum 10,000) when client-side filters are active. Narrow broad searches when filters leave too few results.
• Valid no-match searches finish with an EMPTY summary and zero dataset-item charges.
• Invalid UUIDs, dates, or missing search modes are rejected before result work with an actionable terminal message.
• Source records occasionally omit translations, licenses, dates, or resource sizes; nullable output fields represent those omissions truthfully.

Legal and compliance

The Actor only reads public catalog metadata and resource links. Review each dataset's stated license, restrictions, attribution terms, privacy considerations, and downstream resource conditions before reuse. Avoid using public data to profile people or make high-impact decisions without appropriate legal and ethical review.

Support

If a catalog field changes or a valid query produces unexpected output, share the Actor run ID and redacted input through the Actor issue/support channel. Do not include Apify tokens or private data.