Transport Canada
Canadian transportation department
Transport Canada (TC; French: Transports Canada) is the department of the Government of Canada responsible for developing regulations, policies and services for road, rail, marine and air transportation in Canada. The current minister of transport is Steven MacKinnon. Transport Canada is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario.
History
The Department of Transport was created in 1935 by the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King in recognition of the changing transportation environment in Canada at the time. It merged three departments: the former Department of Railways and Canals, the Department of Marine, and the Civil Aviation Branch of the Department of National Defence (c. 1927 when it replaced the Air Board) under C. D. Howe, who would use the portfolio to rationalize the governance and provision of all forms of transportation (air, water and land). He created a National Harbours Board and Trans-Canada Air Lines. The Department of Transport Act came into force November 2, 1936.
Prior to a 1994 federal government reorganization, Transport Canada had a wide range of operational responsibilities including the Canadian Coast Guard, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, airports and seaports, as well as Via Rail and CN Rail. Significant cuts to Transport Canada at that time resulted in CN Rail being privatized, the coast guard being transferred to Fisheries and Oceans, and the seaway and various ports and airports being transferred to local operating authorities.
“Transport Canada” enters the record as canadian transportation department. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Transport, Canada and Canadian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Transport Canada” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Transport, Canada and Canadian provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2035496. VIAF identifies the subject as 141816005. The Library of Congress control number is n82014967. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1927, 1936 and 1994.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Transport Canada”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Transport Canada primary sources, Transport Canada archive and Transport research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Transport Canada”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Transport Canada” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.