An electronic petition ("e-petition") is used to draw attention to an issue of public interest or concern and to request that the House of Commons, the Government, a Minister of the Crown, or a Member of the Parliament take or refrain from some action. A person preparing and submitting such a request is known as a petitioner.

E-petitions must meet certain requirements established by the rules and practices of the House. The Clerk of Petitions, a non-partisan House of Commons employee, holds the authority to certify that these requirements have been met.

Petitioners cannot directly present a petition to the House of Commons; only a Member of Parliament is able to do so. To have a petition posted on the House of Commons petitions website and eventually presented to the House, it must be authorized for online publication by a member.

Petitions can be prepared and processed as printed documents or in an electronic format. This guide contains information in relation to electronic petitions.

You can search for a petition that is of interest to you by going to the petitions website and searching by keyword, subject, petition number (in the format "e-1234") or by the name of the member of Parliament who has authorized its online publication.

To be a signatory:

• you must be a citizen of your residing country (no minimum age);
• you may not use an email address or a device with an IP address associated with the Government in question;
• you must provide certain information so that your identity may be validated by the House of Commons; and
• you must accept the terms of use.

The information that you will need to provide as a signatory is:

• your name;
• a valid email address (note: an email address may only be associated with one signatory);
• your province or territory;
• the country you are currently residing in; and
• your telephone number. (NOT MANDATORY)

After providing this information, you will receive an automated email prompting you to confirm your signature. This confirmation must be provided for your signature to be counted. You may only sign a given e-petition once. The Clerk of Petitions has the right to reject any signature of which the validity is in doubt.

The first step towards creating an e-petition is to create an account on the petitions website. 

Once your contact information has been submitted, a message with an embedded hyperlink will automatically be sent to your email, prompting you to confirm the creation of your account.

Note: A petitioner may only have one e-petition open for signature in their name at any one time.

The petition must be addressed to one of the following:

• "the House of Commons" or "the House of Commons in Parliament assembled";
• "the relevant Government of choice";
• a minister of the Crown; or
• a member of Parliament.

The text of a petition is essentially a request that the addressee take or avoid some concrete action to remedy a grievance or concern. It must be clear and direct, phrased as a request, and not a demand, and must not exceed 250 words.

The petition may include a more detailed description of the grievance or concern, or a statement of opinion, but these alone cannot be received as a petition. Universal Resource Locators (URLs) or any other links or web-based references are not permitted.

A petition must use respectful and moderate language, and not contain improper or unparliamentary language. It should not contain disrespectful or offensive language with respect to the Crown, Parliament and its members, or the courts. It may not include accusations made against the character or conduct of Parliament, the courts, or any other duly constituted authority. A petition must be written in either English or French.

The petition must concern a subject that is within the authority of the Parliament of your choice, the House of Commons, or the Government. A petition must not concern a purely provincial or municipal matter.

The petition may not concern a matter that is sub judice, i.e., a matter that is the subject of legal proceedings or currently before the courts.

Two e-petitions that are substantially the same may not be open for signature at the same time. An e‑petitioner whose e-petition is substantially the same as another may wait for the first e-petition to close or may amend their e-petition to make it distinctive. A search function is available on the website to identify existing e-petitions.

Before you begin collecting signatures from the general public, the steps listed below must be completed. You will receive an email advising you when the petition progresses through each step.

1. Identify supporters:
   • When you draft your petition, you will be prompted to identify at least five potential supporters ( residents or citizens), but no more than ten, and provide their emails. You may not identify yourself as a supporter since you are the petitioner.
   • Supporters must provide certain basic contact information and must also accept the terms of use. An email associated with the Government or Parliament may not be provided as contact information for supporters.
   • The first five supporters to back your petition will be automatically added as signatories to the petition when it is posted for signature online. They will also receive email updates concerning the petition's progress.

1. Choose the length of time for which your e-petition will remain open for signature (30, 60, 90 or 120 days). This may not be modified after you submit your e-petition.
2. Invite any member of Parliament to authorize the online publication of the e-petition:
   • Once five individuals agree to support your petition, it is sent to the member you have chosen, who will have 30 days to make a decision. If they have not responded within 30 days or refuse the request, you will be prompted to invite another member to carry out this role. You will have a total of five such opportunities, if necessary.
   • The member whom you identify to authorize the online publication of the e-petition will be provided with your contact information and may contact you by email or by telephone before responding to your request. In accepting to authorize its online publication, a member does not necessarily endorse the views or information set out in the e‑petition.
   • In the event the member you have identified ceases to be a member before an e-petition is published on the website, the Clerk of Petitions will contact you and invite you to select another member.

1. Examination by the Clerk of Petitions:
   • Once a member of Parliament has agreed to authorize the online publication of your e-petition, it will be examined by the Clerk of Petitions to ensure that its form and content respect the rules and practices of the House. This includes validating your signature and those of the supporters.
   • If the petition meets the requirements, it will be translated and published on the petitions website for signature by the general public. This step will be done on a first-come, first-served basis, usually within three to five working days from the receipt of the member's authorization. An email is sent to the petitioner to inform them when their petition is published on the website.
   • If the text does not meet the set requirements, the Clerk of Petitions will contact the petitioner, explaining the grounds for rejection. The petitioner may then decide to amend the text of the petition, but the submission process must start anew.

Once the deadline for signing a petition has closed (i.e., after 30, 60, 90 or 120 days), the Clerk of Petitions will proceed with a final validation of signatures. If there are at least 500 valid signatures, the Clerk of Petitions will issue a certificate to the member of Parliament who authorized the online publication of the petition. It can then be presented to the House by any member. A record of this presentation will appear in the journals for that day and the petitioner, supporters and signatories of the petition will be advised by email after its presentation.

If an e-petition has not garnered the minimum number of signatures by the closing date, it will proceed no further, but will remain visible online.

The Standing Orders of the House of Commons require the government to respond to every petition presented to the House within 45 calendar days. If the House is not sitting on that day, the response must be presented at the next sitting of the House.

The petitioner, supporters, signatories, and the member of Parliament who authorized the online publication of the e-petition will be notified by email when the response is tabled in the House. A copy will also be found on the petitions website along with the original petition.

At prorogation (the period of time between two sessions of a Parliament), the petitions website remains active and petitioners may continue to submit petitions and gather signatures. However, certified petitions may not be presented to the House until the opening of the new session. Any outstanding government responses to petitions presented in the previous session must be tabled in the subsequent session.

The dissolution of Parliament (the period between the end of a Parliament and the start of a new Parliament after a general election) terminates the e-petitioning process. The petitions website closes at dissolution and all e-petitions not yet presented to the House are closed, and the obligation for the government to respond to all petitions also lapses. All petitioners will receive an email informing them of the status of their petition. Should a petitioner wish to pursue an issue in the form of an e-petition in the next Parliament, they must start the process anew approximately three weeks after the general election, when the petitions website reopens. Any signatures gathered prior to dissolution may not be reused; signatories who wish to support a similar petition in the new Parliament will have to sign again.

The member of Parliament authorizing the online publication of an e-petition does not necessarily endorse the views or information it contains. It is forbidden to promote an e-petition by using the member's name without their written consent.

During the e-petition process, the collection of personal information by the House of Commons on this website is kept to the strict minimum in order to ensure the integrity of the process. Personal information provided by the petitioner, supporters and signatories must be accurate and up-to-date. The use and provision of false information is prohibited.

The House of Commons reserves the right to close an account, or to remove an e-petition or a signature from an e-petition at any time if it determines that the integrity of the e-petition process has been compromised or that these terms of use have been breached.

In creating an e-petitioner account or submitting an e-petition, you must accept the following:

• An e-petition must be created and submitted in good faith and must not include, among other things:
  • false names or any information you know to be false;
  • potentially libelous or defamatory statements;
  • information protected by a court order (e.g., the identities of children in custody disputes);
  • matters that are the subject of legal proceedings;
  • impertinent or improper matters; or
  • disrespectful or offensive language with respect to the Crown, Parliament or the courts.
• The petitioner is solely responsible for the content of the e-petition.
• It is the petitioner's responsibility to inform potential supporters that some of their personal information will be inputted in the e-petition system and used to contact them when an e‑petition is submitted by the petitioner.
• Any draft e-petition saved on this website, including information relating to supporters, may be consulted by the House of Commons' authorized personnel at any time.

A breach of these Terms of Use may amount to contempt of the House of Commons.

The House of Commons is committed to follow best practices related to the protection of personal information collected, used, disclosed, transmitted and preserved as part of the e-petition process.

The personal information provided on this website will be subject to the following:

• The House of Commons' authorized personnel will have access to the personal information of a petitioner, supporter and signatory, and may use it to contact them or to validate their identity to ensure the integrity of the e-petition process. Data may be used for statistical purposes.
• The petitioner and supporters of an e-petition will be provided with automatic email updates on the various stages of the said e-petition, while signatories will be asked if they wish to subscribe to those emails, for each petition signed.

In creating an account and submitting an e-petition:

• The member of Parliament authorizing its online publication will have access to the petitioner's personal information until that member declines the e-petition.
• Upon publishing an e-petition on this website, the complete name, city, province or territory, and country of the petitioner will be permanently published along with the text of each e‑petition on the website, regardless of the e-petition's status.
• The petitioner's other personal information will be safeguarded on the House of Commons' servers. An account may be deleted by the petitioner, provided that the petitioner does not have an active e-petition. In deleting an account, the personal information collected for the creation of the account will also be deleted, except for that information permanently published with a petition.

In supporting or signing an e-petition:

• None of the personal information provided to the House of Commons by a supporter or a signatory will be published on this website.
• The signature of the supporter or the signatory will be added to the total number of signatures garnered by the e-petition and a general breakdown of signatures by province and territory will appear and remain on the website along with each e-petition.
• Supporters' and signatories' personal information collected through the petitions website will be safeguarded for a duration of six months after the e-petition becomes inactive, or until the dissolution of a Parliament, whichever is earlier, after which it will be destroyed by the House of Commons' authorized personnel.

• We use cookies, a feature offered by web browsers, to collect anonymous data and track the browsing habits of users who visit its website. More specifically, when a user visits the petitions website and wants to create a user account or to initiate, support, or sign an e-petition, the website automatically recognizes the domain name, IP address, web browser version, operating system, and other relevant data about the user's computer and the site the user visited that linked to our site.
• Most browsers are configured to use cookies as a default setting. Users can reconfigure their browser options to block cookies, or to receive a notification when cookies are used. However, users who have chosen to disable cookies will not have access to some features of our website.

Clerk of Petitions
Email: petitions@legislator.com

Last revised: August 2023

[A petition must be addressed to one of the following – select one:]

• House of Commons
• House of Commons in Parliament assembled
• Government of choice
• Prime Minister/Minister of [name of ministry]
• Member of Parliament [name of a member of Parliament and/or name of constituency]

[This section is optional: you may here state facts or opinions (known as grievances) supporting your request. A petition may include many grievances, but keep in mind that it may not contain more than 250 words.]

[Here you may identify, in general terms, who the petitioners are. For example: “We the undersigned citizens (or residents) of ?”; “electors of (name of electoral district)”; “residents of the Province of (name)”; “residents of the City (or Village, etc.) of (name)”.]

[Indicate whom you would like to take action on your request. It is usually the same addressee as above – select one:]

• House of Commons
• House of Commons in Parliament assembled
• Government of choice
• Prime Minister/Minister of [name of ministry]
• Member of Parliament [name of a member of Parliament and/or name of constituency]

[Set out the request by stating succinctly what action the petitioners wish the addressee to take or refrain from taking.]