Methodology
Where the data comes from, what it covers, how this site counts it, and what it leaves out.
Data sources
Federal departments, agencies and Crown corporations publish the travel and hospitality expenses of ministers, ministers’ staff, parliamentary secretaries and senior officials, every quarter, under the Access to Information Act (sections 82 and 83) and the Treasury Board Directive on Travel, Hospitality, Conference and Event Expenditures. The Government of Canada combines them in open datasets on open.canada.ca. This site uses three:
- Proactive Disclosure - Travel Expenses, published by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Used in full: 155,907 records from 141 organizations, start dates 1999-01-01 to 2026-09-12. Departments publish each quarter, normally within 30 days after it ends, and add or correct records at any time; open.canada.ca rebuilds the file every night. This site downloads it once a month. File in this build: last modified 2026-10-09.
- Proactive Disclosure - Hospitality Expenses, published by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Used in full: 68,391 records from 136 organizations, start dates 2003-04-01 to 2026-09-02. Departments publish each quarter, normally within 30 days after it ends, and add or correct records at any time; open.canada.ca rebuilds the file every night. This site downloads it once a month. File in this build: last modified 2026-10-09.
- Proactive Disclosure - Annual Expenditures on Travel, Hospitality and Conferences, published by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat under the Open Government Licence – Canada. It gives each department’s total travel, hospitality and conference spending for each year. Used only to check this site’s figures: see Comparison with official figures. Downloaded with the other two each month. File in this build: last modified 2026-10-09.
Both expense datasets include the records departments migrated from their older web pages, back to 2003. There is no separate legacy dataset on open.canada.ca. The files are downloaded in full and the row counts are checked against the government’s own data API. This build: 2026-10-09.
Data coverage
Included: every travel and hospitality record in the two expense datasets, whatever the amount, from 141 departments, agencies and Crown corporations, mostly from 2003 on (a few records carry earlier dates). Records that are exact copies of another record are shown but counted once; see How amounts are counted.
Not included:
- Travel and hospitality of other public servants. The records cover only the people named above, a small part of all federal travel and hospitality; departments’ full totals are in the annual dataset above.
- Whether a large hospitality event received the ministerial approval the Directive requires, and any comparison with the Directive’s per-person limits: the records do not say. See The $10,000 hospitality threshold.
- “Nothing to report” notices, and the French text of the records. See Known gaps.
- Information about anyone from outside the records. See Officials and names, which also explains which officials have their own page.
Known gaps: recent quarters are incomplete because of late filings, older years have fewer organizations, some years have few records, and errors in the records are shown as published. Details in Known gaps.
How amounts are counted
- Each record is identified by its department and reference number. Departments correct a record by editing it in place, so there are no older versions to remove: each record appears once, as last published.
- Exact copies. 622 travel records ($1,373,906) and 224 hospitality records ($57,653) are identical to another record of the same department in every published field except the reference number, and have a name and a non-zero total. They are shown and marked, but counted once in every total and ranking. Records that differ in any field, however slightly, are counted separately.
- Amount. The record’s own total. For 141 travel records with no total, the sum of their cost lines is used, and the record says so. 131 records have neither and count as $0.
- Cost lines that do not match. In 1,633 travel records the cost lines (airfare, other transport, lodging, meals, other) do not add up to the stated total within $1. The site uses the stated total and shows both figures on the record.
- Fiscal year. April 1 to March 31, assigned by the start date of the trip or event.
- Cost per attendee = total ÷ (employee attendees + guest attendees), shown only when the record gives at least one attendee count above zero. 5,081 of 68,167 hospitality records do not, and are left out of per-attendee rankings. Attendee counts and totals are as published; some are clearly very large or very small, and the site does not correct them.
Officials and names
Records are published for people in their public role. This site shows only what the records contain and adds nothing about anyone from other sources. A person on this site is a name exactly as written in the records within one department. Two spellings are shown together only when, in the same department, they have the same words (ignoring order, capitals, accents and punctuation, such as “Forbes, Chris” and “Chris Forbes”) and the records give both spellings an identical title. Anything else, such as a name with a rank or initial added, or the same name in two departments, stays separate.
Officials whose combined travel and hospitality reaches $10,000, or who appear in a ranking, get their own page. That is 5,178 of 10,229 named officials, which keeps the site to a number of pages the hosting platform handles comfortably. Everyone else is in the explorer, searchable by name.
The $10,000 hospitality threshold
Appendix B of the Directive on Travel, Hospitality, Conference and Event Expenditures, in effect since April 1, 2017, says in section B.2.2.6 that ministerial approval is required, unless the minister has delegated it to the deputy head, when:
B.2.2.6.1 Total hospitality costs exceed $10,000
The over $10,000 list shows every event above that amount. The records do not say whether approval was given. The Directive also sets per-person limits for food and beverages (Table 2) as multiples of the National Joint Council meal allowances for each kind of meal. This site does not compare records with those limits: the records give one total that can include room rental, equipment, transport and taxes as well as food, and they do not say which meals were served or the allowance in force, so a comparison would not be reliable.
Known gaps
- Late filings. Departments publish each quarter, normally within 30 days after it ends, and add or correct records later. Recent quarters keep growing. The latest record here starts on 2026-09-12; 16,964 counted records start in the twelve months before it.
- Nothing to report. Departments also file “nothing to report” notices for quarters with no expenses (2,698 for travel and 5,098 for hospitality in the current files). This site does not use them.
- Older years have fewer organizations: many agencies and Crown corporations started publishing later, so totals before 2016-17 are not comparable with later years.
- Fiscal year 2020-21 and 2021-22 have few records.
- Text is in English as published; the French versions are in the government records.
- Errors in the records, such as misplaced decimals, are published as the government released them. If you know a record is wrong, the department can correct it; tell us too, through the corrections page.
Comparison with official figures
There is no official total for these records themselves. The closest official figures are each department’s annual travel and hospitality spending, published in Proactive Disclosure - Annual Expenditures on Travel, Hospitality and Conferences. Those cover all of a department’s travel and hospitality, every public servant included, while these records cover only ministers, their staff and senior officials. So the records should add up to a fraction of the annual figure, and not more. The tables compare the two for the 696 department-years that appear in both, by fiscal year (April to March). Across those years the records are 1.7% of the annual travel figure and 4.6% of the annual hospitality figure.
Travel
| Fiscal year | Departments | Records | Annual figure | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-11 | 9 | $1.63M | $575.64M | 0.3% |
| 2011-12 | 10 | $1.53M | $570.94M | 0.3% |
| 2012-13 | 12 | $5.19M | $580.74M | 0.9% |
| 2013-14 | 13 | $5.49M | $512.05M | 1.1% |
| 2014-15 | 17 | $5.59M | $524.56M | 1.1% |
| 2015-16 | 31 | $6.66M | $587.44M | 1.1% |
| 2016-17 | 42 | $12.18M | $894.31M | 1.4% |
| 2017-18 | 52 | $17.72M | $1,060.73M | 1.7% |
| 2018-19 | 59 | $19.72M | $1,052.59M | 1.9% |
| 2019-20 | 66 | $18.34M | $1,030.09M | 1.8% |
| 2020-21 | 69 | $0.61M | $230.47M | 0.3% |
| 2021-22 | 70 | $5.21M | $465.68M | 1.1% |
| 2022-23 | 74 | $23.04M | $880.80M | 2.6% |
| 2023-24 | 80 | $26.99M | $1,002.46M | 2.7% |
| 2024-25 | 75 | $24.91M | $646.62M | 3.9% |
| 2025-26 | 17 | $9.82M | $168.25M | 5.8% |
Hospitality
| Fiscal year | Departments | Records | Annual figure | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-11 | 9 | $0.07M | $5.99M | 1.1% |
| 2011-12 | 10 | $0.03M | $4.62M | 0.7% |
| 2012-13 | 12 | $0.59M | $14.87M | 4.0% |
| 2013-14 | 13 | $0.55M | $15.49M | 3.6% |
| 2014-15 | 17 | $0.60M | $15.08M | 4.0% |
| 2015-16 | 31 | $0.54M | $15.20M | 3.5% |
| 2016-17 | 42 | $0.85M | $28.29M | 3.0% |
| 2017-18 | 52 | $1.27M | $24.53M | 5.2% |
| 2018-19 | 59 | $1.40M | $27.33M | 5.1% |
| 2019-20 | 66 | $1.52M | $23.21M | 6.6% |
| 2020-21 | 69 | $0.11M | $3.96M | 2.8% |
| 2021-22 | 70 | $0.42M | $6.79M | 6.3% |
| 2022-23 | 74 | $1.10M | $21.81M | 5.1% |
| 2023-24 | 80 | $1.43M | $24.60M | 5.8% |
| 2024-25 | 75 | $1.59M | $22.44M | 7.1% |
| 2025-26 | 17 | $0.73M | $21.70M | 3.4% |
In 10 of 696 department-years the travel records add up to more than the annual travel figure, and in 36 the hospitality records do. These are differences between two government publications; this site shows the records as published. The annual dataset’s data dictionary describes its hospitality figure as covering the “previous reporting fiscal year”; this comparison matches it with the records of the same fiscal year as the row, which is how the departments’ published tables present it.
Department-years where the records add up to more than the annual figure
Largest difference first.
| Kind | Fiscal year | Department | Records | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Travel | 2025-26 | Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians | $197,271 | $178,000 |
| Travel | 2024-25 | Farm Products Council of Canada | $231,443 | $219,000 |
| Travel | 2021-22 | Farm Products Council of Canada | $30,883 | $22,500 |
| Travel | 2019-20 | National Security and Intelligence Review Agency | $63,981 | $56,000 |
| Travel | 2020-21 | Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians | $2,959 | $1,900 |
| Travel | 2021-22 | Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians | $5,048 | $4,000 |
| Travel | 2021-22 | Accessibility Standards Canada | $6,627 | $6,000 |
| Travel | 2020-21 | Canadian Institutes of Health Research | $1,276 | $1,000 |
| Travel | 2021-22 | Military Police Complaints Commission of Canada | $1,167 | $1,000 |
| Travel | 2021-22 | Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsperson | $1,040 | $1,000 |
| Hospitality | 2024-25 | Department of Finance Canada | $118,033 | $94,000 |
| Hospitality | 2019-20 | Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada | $17,728 | $6,000 |
| Hospitality | 2022-23 | Farm Products Council of Canada | $33,199 | $23,800 |
| Hospitality | 2022-23 | Accessibility Standards Canada | $16,405 | $14,000 |
| Hospitality | 2024-25 | Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages | $18,959 | $16,873 |
| Hospitality | 2023-24 | Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada | $5,802 | $4,000 |
| Hospitality | 2019-20 | Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety | $5,217 | $3,700 |
| Hospitality | 2024-25 | Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada | $3,422 | $2,000 |
| Hospitality | 2019-20 | Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians | $12,287 | $10,900 |
| Hospitality | 2023-24 | Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages | $13,376 | $11,991 |
| Hospitality | 2019-20 | Farm Products Council of Canada | $13,470 | $12,300 |
| Hospitality | 2022-23 | National Security and Intelligence Review Agency | $13,137 | $12,000 |
| Hospitality | 2024-25 | Office of the Auditor General of Canada | $12,111 | $11,000 |
| Hospitality | 2022-23 | Financial Consumer Agency of Canada | $11,005 | $10,000 |
| Hospitality | 2017-18 | Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians | $2,902 | $2,000 |
| Hospitality | 2024-25 | Canadian Grain Commission | $9,795 | $9,000 |
| Hospitality | 2017-18 | Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety | $4,663 | $3,900 |
| Hospitality | 2021-22 | The National Battlefields Commission | $10,734 | $10,000 |
| Hospitality | 2022-23 | Canada Energy Regulator | $63,610 | $63,000 |
| Hospitality | 2023-24 | Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada | $3,435 | $3,000 |
| Hospitality | 2018-19 | Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety | $5,113 | $4,700 |
| Hospitality | 2023-24 | Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety | $3,348 | $2,950 |
| Hospitality | 2021-22 | Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians | $2,345 | $2,000 |
| Hospitality | 2021-22 | National Security and Intelligence Review Agency | $5,293 | $5,000 |
| Hospitality | 2025-26 | Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario | $6,899 | $6,730 |
| Hospitality | 2025-26 | Farm Products Council of Canada | $3,057 | $2,900 |
| Hospitality | 2020-21 | Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians | $1,239 | $1,100 |
| Hospitality | 2022-23 | Office of the Intelligence Commissioner | $800 | $690 |
| Hospitality | 2022-23 | Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages | $2,213 | $2,131 |
| Hospitality | 2025-26 | Financial Consumer Agency of Canada | $8,073 | $8,000 |
| Hospitality | 2024-25 | Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat | $691 | $620 |
| Hospitality | 2023-24 | Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat | $676 | $610 |
| Hospitality | 2022-23 | Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada | $2,045 | $2,000 |
| Hospitality | 2023-24 | Office of the Intelligence Commissioner | $234 | $200 |
| Hospitality | 2022-23 | Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat | $888 | $860 |
| Hospitality | 2019-20 | Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat | $149 | $132 |
Links to the records
Every item links to its page on the government’s search site (search.open.canada.ca), and to a data API query on open.canada.ca that returns exactly that record. The search site cannot open reference numbers that contain a slash; those link to the API query only.
Updates
The site is rebuilt monthly from fresh downloads. This build: 2026-10-09. Source files: travel last modified Fri, 09 Oct 2026 07:00:35 GMT, hospitality Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:58:53 GMT.
Disclaimer
Publicly is an independent project. It is not affiliated with the Government of Canada, any other government, court or agency, or any political party.
These pages are built by automated processing of the records the government publishes, with code written and run with the help of AI. We compare the records with the departments’ own annual travel and hospitality totals; the comparison is on this page, under Comparison with official figures. Errors in the source files or in our processing can still occur. Treat every figure as a pointer to the original record and verify it there before you rely on it: every item links to the record it comes from.
Amounts are as reported by departments, not audited findings. An expense appearing on this site, or a name in a ranking, is not an allegation of wrongdoing. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice.
Found a mistake? Report it on the corrections page.