Four public registries answer four different questions about a seller, and each exists because a statute created it: the insolvency record under Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act section 11.1, the sheriff’s writ index under Ontario’s Execution Act section 10, the corporate register under the OBCA or the CBCA, and the court file under Courts of Justice Act section 137. Each is true as at the moment it was run, and silent about the moment after.
Key takeaways
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It states that, at one moment, a named registry held no matching record under the exact name searched. Corporations Canada says the quiet part out loud: after a filing is completed “it may take several hours for the database to reflect the update”.
Registers also age out. Under rule 60.07(6) an Ontario writ “expires on the sixth anniversary of the date of its issue” unless renewed — the judgment behind it does not. A nil report against a seller who lost a case eight years ago is accurate and says nothing about whether the debt was paid.
Searching and contracting are separate jobs: searches buy knowledge as at a date, the agreement buys a remedy for what they missed. Treadstone Law on judgment searches reaches the same sequence — representation, indemnity, holdback.
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BIA section 11.1(1), marginal note Public records, provides that “The Superintendent shall keep, or cause to be kept, in such form as the Superintendent deems appropriate and for the prescribed period, a public record of” proposals, bankruptcies, trustee licences and receivers’ notices.
Receiverships arrive through a separate duty. Section 245(1) requires that “A receiver shall, as soon as possible and not later than ten days after becoming a receiver” notify the Superintendent, so there is a lawful window in which a business is in receivership and the register is silent.
The Records Search publishes what it holds: “basic debtor information of all bankruptcies and proposals registered in Canada since 1978”, “all receiverships registered with our office since January 1993”, petitions, and CCAA filings since 18 September 2009, at a minimum of “$8 per search”. It indexes debtors, not businesses: search the corporation, each vendor and every predecessor name.
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Execution Act section 10(0.1) defines “index” as “the electronic database maintained by the sheriff as the index of writs of execution”. A writ binds personal property “from the time it is filed with the sheriff and entered into the index”, and Land Titles Act section 136(2) provides that “No registered land is bound by any writ of execution” until the sheriff has done so.
Small Claims Court writs against personal property never enter it. Section 10(2) says such a writ “is not entered into the index” and binds “only from the time the personal property is seized”. A seller with several unpaid Small Claims judgments can hand you a clear writ search.
The other gap is the name. Section 11(1) says a writ against an individual does not bind land unless “the name of the execution debtor set out in the writ includes at least one given name in full”, and Ontario’s 1998 land registration bulletin records the practice: “Only executions against the exact name of the corporation or partnership as set out in the transfer will be searched”. That is ministry practice, not statute, and it is why a numbered company, its trade name and its spelled-out name are three searches — the vendor personally being a fourth.
And a hit is not automatically a priority: see how a writ works, writs against perfected security, and registered security.
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Existence, and little else. Ontario states that “Anyone can search the OBR for free to get basic information about a business or not-for-profit organization”, sells search products at published fees, and is explicit that “Administrative information such as contact information for the filing and the official email address is not shown on the public record”.
Federally the right is statutory: CBCA section 266(1) entitles a person who has paid the fee “to examine and make copies of or take extracts from a document or other information” sent to the Director. But Corporations Canada warns that “This database does not include corporations created under financial” statutes, or provincial, territorial or foreign ones. Confirm the incorporating statute first.
No corporate search in Canada shows who owns the shares; that lives in the corporation’s own securities register. Treadstone Law is direct on the limits of a certificate of status and on reading the minute book instead.
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OBCA section 241(9) provides that on revival “the corporation shall be deemed for all purposes never to have been dissolved”, so a status search is a snapshot of a reversible state (reviving an Ontario corporation).
Dissolution does not close the door on claims either: section 242(1)(b) lets “a civil, criminal, administrative, investigative or other action or proceeding” be brought against the corporation “as if it had not been dissolved”.
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Here the jurisdiction decides the answer. CBCA section 21.303(1) requires the Director to “make available to the public the following information sent to the Director under section 21.21 for each individual with significant control” — including the section 21.1(1)(c) and (d) particulars of how each qualifies. Subsection (3) lets an individual apply to have it withheld.
Ontario is the mirror image. A corporation keeps the register under section 140.2, but section 140.3 confines disclosure to police, tax officials and listed regulators, and section 145(1) lets shareholders and creditors examine the records “other than a register of individuals with significant control”. There is no public Ontario beneficial-ownership search: as Treadstone Law says of the ISC register, you get it by asking in diligence.
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Courts of Justice Act section 137(1), marginal note Documents public, provides that “On payment of the prescribed fee, a person is entitled to see any document filed in a civil proceeding in a court, unless an Act or an order of the court provides otherwise”. Subsection (2) is the exception: a court may order a filed document “be treated as confidential, sealed and not form part of the public record”.
The online tool repeats the point — “This search tool won’t show cases with public access restrictions due to laws or court orders” — and adds a geography trap. Since 14 October 2025 the guidance is that “You must use the Ontario Courts Public Portal to search for cases in the Toronto region”, with Justice Services Online covering everywhere else.
And a court search finds a file, not a liability: demand letters, regulatory complaints and unfiled disputes appear in no register, as Treadstone Law notes of pending litigation.
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Bank Act security is the classic miss, because it sits outside the provincial personal-property registry. Bank Act section 427(4)(a) makes a bank’s rights “void as against creditors of the person giving the security and as against subsequent purchasers or mortgagees in good faith” unless a notice of intention was registered in the appropriate agency — which subsection (5) defines as “the office of the Bank of Canada or its authorized representative but does not include its Ottawa office”. For a manufacturer, farmer, fisher or forestry producer, run it.
Second, the workers’ compensation clearance, because Ontario imposes successor liability by statute. WSIA section 146(1) applies when an employer “sells, leases, transfers or otherwise disposes of all or part of the employer’s business” outside an insolvency process, and subsection (2) is one line: “The person is liable to pay all amounts owing under this Act by the employer immediately before the disposition.” The WSIB says a clearance “is valid for up to 90 days” (clearance in a purchase).
Then tax, which is a request rather than a register: CRA arrears sit on no public database, and transferee liability runs through section 160. Registered security has its own method, and bulk sales its own replacement.
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Alberta keeps no separate sheriff’s index. Under the Civil Enforcement Act a writ does not bind an enforcement debtor’s interest “in any personal property, other than while the writ is in force and registered in the Personal Property Registry”; against land, “The registration of a writ under the Land Titles Act is in effect for the duration of the judgment”. An Ontario checklist run in Alberta looks in the wrong building.
Québec is a third system (the hypothec and the RDPRM); BC and Alberta differ again. Name the province before you name the registry.
Then sequence it: run the set early enough to price what turns up, re-run within a day or two of funding, and record the date and exact name searched on each certificate. Where the target is already insolvent, buying from a trustee turns on the vesting order instead.
Not necessarily. Small Claims Court writs against personal property never enter the sheriff’s writ index at all under section 10(2) of the Execution Act — they bind only from the moment the property is seized — so a seller with several unpaid Small Claims judgments can still hand a buyer a clear writ search.
No, only for up to 90 days. That matters because Ontario imposes successor liability by statute: under section 146 of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, a buyer who acquires a business outside an insolvency process becomes liable for all amounts the seller owed under the Act immediately before the deal, so the clearance needs to be current at closing, not just checked once during diligence.
No corporate search in Canada shows share ownership — that information lives in the corporation’s own securities register, not in any public registry. Federally, the CBCA does require a public register of individuals with significant control, but Ontario is the opposite: disclosure there is confined to police, tax officials and listed regulators, so a buyer only gets it by asking directly in diligence.
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