This dataset includes over one million directors of businesses and not-for-profits incorporated with Corporations Canada, a division of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Canada.
Corporations Canada is Canada's federal corporate regulator, responsible for administering laws regarding the incorporation of Canadian businesses, except for financial intermediaries.
Each director is registered with director name, office address, corporation number, corporate name, corporate office address, etc.
Dataset Information
Subject
Economics and Industry
Jurisdiction
Federal
Data Provider
Corporations Canada, a division of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Canada
Source
open.canada.ca
Attribution
Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada.
Dataset Details
A corporation is a new legal entity created when incorporating. Directors are responsible for supervising the activities of the corporation and for making decisions regarding those activities, while officers are responsible for the day-to-day operation of the corporation.
The number of directors is specified in the articles of incorporation, and there must be at least one director, elected at the shareholders' meeting by a majority of votes of shareholders.
Directors are allowed, but not required unless by articles, to hold shares of a corporation where they are directors.
At least 25 percent of the directors of a corporation must be resident Canadians.
Corporations operating in sectors subject to ownership restrictions (such as airlines and telecommunications) or corporations in certain cultural sectors (such as book retailing, video or film distribution) must have a majority of resident Canadian directors.
The duties and liabilities of directors and officers are prescribed under the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA), and other federal, and provincial or territorial statutes or court decisions.
The duty of care requires that the directors and officers must exercise at least the level of care and diligence that a reasonable person would exercise in similar circumstances act honestly at all times, in good faith and in the best interests of the corporation, as opposed to their own personal interests.
Directors and officers must always remain informed about the corporation's activities, ensure that the corporation's activities are legal and in the best interests of the corporation.
Information about federal corporations is public information, including the names and addresses of corporation's directors, as required by corporate laws that govern federal corporations.
This applies even after a corporation has been dissolved, amalgamated or discontinued. Corporate information is made public to help people, like investors, financial institutions and other stakeholders, make timely and informed decisions about corporations, and let people know who is responsible for the corporation.
Information and documents filed are not removed from the corporate records even when new information or documents are filed, including documents previously filed, filed for previous years or filed by mistake. Corporate laws require the public disclosure of this information.
Statistics
While over 95% of all directors of federally incorporated businesses have office addresses located in Canada, there are also significan number of directors in United States, United Kindom, France, China and India, showing the economic and trade ties of Canada with these countries.
Most Canadian directors have office addresses either in Ontario (52%) or in Quebec (37%), consisting with the corporations' headquarter addresses. There are much fewer directors in British Columbia (5.5%), Alberta (4.9%) or other provinces or territories.
The most popular city for fedral corporation directors is Toronto, with more than 150,000 directors, followed by Montreal, Ottawa, Mississauga, Brampton, and Calgary. Directors are distributed more broadly than corporations among different cities.
The number of directors grow proportionally as federal corporations growing steadily year over year, with a noticeable increase in recent years.