Canada.ca Content and Information Architecture Specification: Mandatory elements of the Canada.ca design system

Government of Canada web pages must be easily identifiable as part of Canada.ca. Each page must convey the overall brand and feel of Canada.ca, and provide a consistent experience for site visitors.

These mandatory elements were designed to reflect the trusted digital brand of the Government of Canada: modern, open, helpful and credible.

The Canada.ca domain

Use the Canada.ca domain for all Government of Canada web pages:

• Canada.ca domain

Styles

Apply the following style elements:

• Typography
• Colours
• Layouts

Header and footer

Each page from the Government of Canada shares a common header and footer. That is, the upper and lower parts of a page must look the same from page to page.

Get the detailed requirements:

• Global header
• Global footer

Institutional landing page

All Government of Canada organizations and institutions must use this template as the single home page for their institution.

• Institutional landing page template

Other mandatory templates

Specific Canada.ca page types use mandatory templates. Consistency in these page types helps people find and accomplish tasks.

• Theme page: top-level page for each Canada.ca theme, to be used only by theme lead institution
• Topic page: mandatory for the first 2 levels of topics in the Canada.ca topic tree, optional for lower-level topics
• Government-wide audience page: to be used only by the institutions managing the government-wide audiences
• Ministerial profile: to be used for ministers and parliamentary secretaries (also used with modification for heads of quasi-judicial arm’s-length institutions)
• News products: common layouts for news products such as releases, backgrounders, advisories and speeches

Government-wide templates

There is only one of each of these pages across Canada.ca.

• Canada.ca home page
• Departments and agencies page
• News landing page
• News results page
• Search page