Start a House of Commons e-petition: draft 250 words, gather five supporters, get an MP to authorize publication, reach 500 signatures, get a response.
Applies in: CA
This guide covers the mechanics of starting an electronic petition, or e-petition, to the House of Commons. It describes the process only: creating the petition, gathering supporters, getting a member of Parliament to authorize publication, collecting signatures, and receiving a government response. It takes no position on any petition, sponsor or subject, and it uses no example petition, because the process is the same whatever the subject. An 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 of Canada, a minister of the Crown, or a member of Parliament take or refrain from some action, according to the Electronic Petitions Guide and Terms of Use.
Petitioners cannot directly present a petition in 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 in the House, it must be authorized for online publication by a member. E-petitions must meet requirements established by the rules and practices of the House, and the Clerk of Petitions, a non-partisan House of Commons employee, holds the authority to certify that those requirements have been met.
The first step is to create an account on the petitions website. You may not use an email address or a device with an IP address associated with the Government of Canada or the Parliament of Canada. As a petitioner you must provide your full name, city, country, province or territory and postal code if currently residing in Canada, telephone number and a valid email address, confirm your Canadian citizenship or residency, and agree to the terms of use, as set out in the Electronic Petitions Guide and Terms of Use. Once your contact information is submitted, a message with a link is sent to your email prompting you to confirm the creation of your account. A petitioner may have only one e-petition open for signature at a time.
Draft the petition using the template on the website. The petition must be addressed to one of the following: the House of Commons or the House of Commons in Parliament assembled, the Government of Canada, a minister of the Crown, or a member of Parliament. The text is essentially a request, also called a prayer, 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 a statement of opinion, but these alone cannot be received as a petition. URLs or any other links or web-based references are not permitted. The petition must use respectful and moderate language, must not contain improper or unparliamentary language or disrespectful language about the Crown, Parliament and its members, or the courts, and must be written in either English or French.
The petition must concern a subject within the authority of the Parliament of Canada, the House of Commons, or the Government of Canada, and must not concern a purely provincial or municipal matter. It may not concern a matter that is sub judice, meaning 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, so search the petitions website for existing petitions before drafting, and either wait for the first petition to close or amend yours to make it distinctive. You can send a draft directly by email to the Clerk of Petitions for prior review to check its form and content, at the address given in the Electronic Petitions Guide and Terms of Use.
Before an e-petition can go to a member, it needs supporters. When you draft your petition, you are prompted to identify at least five potential supporters, but no more than ten, and provide their emails, according to the Guide to Creating and Submitting a Petition. A supporter is a resident of Canada or a citizen of Canada living in Canada or abroad, who supports the ideas and proposals in your petition and signifies support before it is sent to a member to be sponsored. You may not identify yourself as a supporter, since you are the petitioner, and an email address associated with the Government of Canada or the Parliament of Canada may not be provided as contact information for supporters.
The first five supporters to back your petition are automatically added as signatories if and when it is posted for signature online, and receive email updates on its progress. The agreement of five supporters is required before you can proceed to the next step. Supporters must provide certain basic contact information and accept the terms of use.
Once five individuals agree to support your petition, it is sent to the member you have chosen, who has 30 days to make a decision. If the member has not responded within 30 days or refuses the request, you are prompted to invite another member, and you have five such opportunities in total, as set out in the Electronic Petitions Guide and Terms of Use. The member you identify may contact you by email or telephone before responding. The sponsor need not be the member who represents your constituency, and in accepting to sponsor a petition a member is not necessarily agreeing with the opinions or request in it. A sponsoring member is not permitted to rescind the decision to act as sponsor. If the member you identified ceases to be a member before the e-petition is published, the Clerk of Petitions contacts you and invites you to select another member.
Choose the length of time your e-petition will remain open for signature when you create it: 30, 60, 90 or 120 days. This cannot be modified after you submit your e-petition, so decide the period before submitting, not after publication.
Once a member has agreed to authorize online publication, the petition is examined by the Clerk of Petitions to ensure its form and content respect the rules and practices of the House, including validating your signature and those of the supporters. If the petition meets the requirements, it is translated and published on the petitions website for signature by the general public, on a first-come, first-served basis, usually within five working days from receipt of the member's authorization, and you receive an email when it is published. If the text does not meet the requirements, the Clerk contacts you explaining the grounds for rejection, and you may amend the text, but the submission process must start anew. The Guidelines for Petitions set out the same typical path: creation, support of five Canadian citizens or residents, authorization by a member, preliminary examination by the Clerk, publication for 30, 60, 90 or 120 days, certification at 500 signatures, presentation, and a government response within 45 days.
Once published, anyone may sign, subject to the signing rules. To sign an e-petition there is no minimum age, and you must be a Canadian citizen or resident, including citizens living abroad and non-citizens living in Canada. You must provide your name, a valid email address, your province or territory and postal code if living in Canada, or your country of residence if living outside Canada, and your telephone number, and you do not need an account. You may sign only once, signatures cannot be withdrawn, and you must confirm your signature through the email sent to you, or it does not count. The Clerk may reject any signature that cannot be verified.
After the signing deadline closes, the Clerk proceeds with a final validation of signatures. If there are at least 500 valid signatures, the Clerk issues a certificate to the member who authorized publication, including the petition text and total signatures, and the petition can then be presented to the House by any member. A record of the presentation appears in the Journals for that day, and the petitioner, supporters and signatories are advised by email. If the petition has not gathered the minimum number of signatures by the closing date, it proceeds no further but remains visible online.
The Standing Orders 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. The petitioner, supporters, signatories and authorizing member are notified by email when the response is tabled, and a copy is posted on the petitions website with the original petition. If no response arrives within 45 calendar days, the matter is referred to a standing committee, as set out in the Guidelines for Petitions.
Two timing rules can end a petition early. At prorogation, the period between two sessions of a Parliament, the petitions website remains active and petitioners may continue to submit petitions and gather signatures, but certified petitions may not be presented until the opening of the new session. At dissolution, the period between the end of a Parliament and the start of a new Parliament after a general election, the e-petitioning process ends, the website closes, all e-petitions not yet presented are closed, and the government's obligation to respond lapses. A petitioner who wishes to pursue the issue in the next Parliament must start anew approximately three weeks after the general election, when the petitions website reopens, and signatures gathered before dissolution may not be reused.
A petitioner creates an account on the petitions website, provides contact details, and confirms Canadian citizenship or residency. A petitioner may have only one e-petition open for signature at a time. To sign an e-petition there is no minimum age, and you must be a Canadian citizen or resident, including citizens living abroad and non-citizens living in Canada. Signatures of non-citizens who are not resident in Canada are not counted. You may sign an e-petition only once, and signatures cannot be withdrawn.
No. In accepting to authorize online publication, a member does not necessarily endorse the views or information in the e-petition. The member's role is to act as an intermediary between signatories and Parliament and to authorize publication so the petition can be posted and eventually presented. Petitioners cannot present a petition directly; only a member of Parliament can present one. It is forbidden to promote an e-petition by using the member's name without their written consent.
The text must be no more than 250 words, addressed to the House of Commons, the House of Commons in Parliament assembled, the Government of Canada, a minister of the Crown, or a member of Parliament, and must contain a prayer: a clear, direct request, phrased as a request and not a demand, that the addressee take or avoid some concrete action to remedy a grievance. A description of the grievance or a statement of opinion alone cannot be received as a petition. The text may not include URLs or other links or web-based references, must use respectful and temperate language, must be written in English or French, must concern a subject within federal authority rather than a purely provincial or municipal matter, and may not concern a matter that is sub judice.
Once five supporters have backed your petition, it is sent to the member you chose, who has 30 days to decide. If the member does not respond within 30 days or refuses, you are prompted to invite another member, and you have five such opportunities in total. If a sponsoring member ceases to be a member before publication, the Clerk of Petitions contacts you and invites you to select another member. A sponsoring member is not permitted to rescind a decision to act as sponsor.
You choose the signing period when you create the petition: 30, 60, 90 or 120 days, and it cannot be modified after you submit. To receive final certification, an e-petition must receive at least 500 valid signatures during that period. If it has not gathered the minimum by the closing date, it proceeds no further but remains visible online. If it reaches 500 valid signatures, the Clerk of Petitions issues a certificate with the petition text and total signatures to the authorizing member, and it can then be presented to the House.
Yes. The Standing Orders 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. The petitioner, supporters, signatories and authorizing member are notified by email when the response is tabled, and a copy is posted on the petitions website with the original petition. If the government fails to respond within 45 calendar days, the matter is referred to a standing committee.
No figure in this guide was carried from a secondary source. The following were cut because they could not be verified on an opened House of Commons page: whether a petitioner living outside Canada can create an account on the same terms as a petitioner living in Canada, since the opened guides state only that a petitioner must confirm Canadian citizenship or residency; the petition number format for searching published petitions; and any fee for creating or submitting an e-petition, since no opened page states one. An older House of Commons petitioner guide states a fixed 120-day signing period and examination within three to five working days, while the current Guide and Terms of Use and the 2025 Procedure and Practice chapter state a 30, 60, 90 or 120-day period chosen by the petitioner and publication usually within five working days; this guide follows the current wording and notes the difference here rather than carrying both figures into the steps.