Mechanically generated from the GOV-ATLAS registry (our public-body and document registries); every field is a direct read of a registry cell, re-derived on each run — nothing here is hand-written analysis.

Library and Archives Canada

Federal Agency Tier 1 verified
registry id: fed-library-archives-canada · last checked 2026-07-23 · parent: — none on file · source authority: verify this org exists

FOI via central portal

Current this library's internal records: Library and Archives Canada 2026–27 Departmental Plan (2027)

Completeness

Endpoints

Document shelf (14 rows)

YearTypeTitleArchive statusFlags
2026Strategic planDepartmental Plan 2025–2026archived
2025Departmental results reportDepartmental Results Report 2024–2025archived
2025Strategic planDepartmental Plan 2024–2025archived
2024Departmental results reportDepartmental Results Report 2023–2024archived
2024Strategic planDepartmental Plan 2023–2024archived
2023Departmental results reportDepartmental Results Report 2022–2023archived
2023Strategic planDepartmental Plan 2022–2023archived
2022Departmental results reportDepartmental Results Report 2021–2022archived
2022Strategic planDepartmental Plan 2021–2022archived
2005Departmental planNational Archives of Canada Report on Plans and Priorities 2004-2005archived⚠️ Still being checked: capture-artifact-goc-interstitial
2004Departmental planNational Archives of Canada Report on Plans and Priorities 2003-2004archived⚠️ Still being checked: capture-artifact-goc-interstitial
2003Departmental planNational Archives of Canada Estimates Part III Report on Plans and Priorities 2002-2003archived⚠️ Still being checked: capture-artifact-goc-interstitial
2002Departmental planNational Archives of Canada Estimates Part III Report on Plans and Priorities 2001-2002archived⚠️ Still being checked: capture-artifact-goc-interstitial
2001Departmental planNational Archives of Canada Estimates Part III Report on Plans and Priorities 2000-2001archived⚠️ Still being checked: capture-artifact-goc-interstitial

Backgrounder

Source: this library's internal records — a mechanical research draft, not independently reviewed for publication; reproduced as-is.

Library and Archives Canada - backgrounder

Backgrounder / 2026-07-30 / registry row: fed-library-archives-canada (this library's government-document registry) / lens file for this org's series briefs

Mandate & statutory basis

LAC is established under the Library and Archives of Canada Act, S.C. 2004, c. 11 (chapter designation L-7.7), consolidated text verified at https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/L-7.7/. Section 4 provides "there is hereby established a branch of the federal public administration to be known as the Library and Archives of Canada presided over by the Minister" (same source). Section 7 sets out the Act's objects, including acquiring and preserving the documentary heritage of national significance, making it accessible, serving as the permanent repository of government publications and records, facilitating government information management, and coordinating library services across government (same source). Section 8 empowers the Librarian and Archivist of Canada to acquire and catalogue materials, provide research and lending services, run public programs, enter agreements with other institutions, and advise government bodies on information management (same source).

Roles, responsibilities & scope

LAC organizes its work under two core responsibilities - acquiring and preserving documentary heritage, and providing access to that heritage - per its 2025-26 Departmental Plan (document id fed-library-archives-canada-sp-2026, https://www.canada.ca/en/library-archives/corporate/transparency/reports-publications/departmental-plans/2025-2026.html; r.jina.ai text-rendering fallback used for retrieval). It describes itself as "the memory of Canada" (same source; statute s.7).

Governance & reporting line

LAC is presided over by the Minister of Canadian Heritage per s.4 of the Act (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/L-7.7/), with day-to-day institutional leadership held by the Librarian and Archivist of Canada (2025-26 Departmental Plan, document id fed-library-archives-canada-sp-2026).

Budget scale

~$208.2M total departmental budget for 2025-26 ($72.9M acquiring/preserving heritage, $91.0M providing access, $44.3M internal services; 1,061 planned FTEs), per the 2025-26 Departmental Plan (document id fed-library-archives-canada-sp-2026, https://www.canada.ca/en/library-archives/corporate/transparency/reports-publications/departmental-plans/2025-2026.html).

Institutional history

LAC was established in 2004 under the Library and Archives of Canada Act, S.C. 2004, c. 11, merging the former National Library of Canada and National Archives of Canada into a single institution (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/L-7.7/; 2025-26 Departmental Plan, document id fed-library-archives-canada-sp-2026).

Strategy evolution brief

Source: this library's internal records — a mechanical research draft, not independently reviewed for publication; reproduced as-is.

Library and Archives Canada - strategy evolution

2026-08-01 / registry: fed-library-archives-canada / grounded in archived copies (cited document id + sha256) / read through our research file for that body

TL;DR: The biggest priority addition is Vision 2030, launched spring 2020 and published in 2022, which becomes LAC's organizing strategic frame and later spawns a formal EDIA (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility) pillar and Centre of Excellence. The most consequential quiet drop is a one-time-named 2022-23 commitment to "continue discussions on updating the 2004 Library and Archives of Canada Act," which never recurs in any of the six later documents. The most load-bearing number is planned 2025-26 spending of $208,150,119 (1,061 FTEs), set against a disclosed funding cliff: LAC's own forward table shows planned spending falling to $176.2M (2026-27) and $143.0M (2027-28) as Ādisōke construction costs and Indigenous-reconciliation/ATIP funding lines sunset. One open question the record cannot resolve: whether Ādisōke, LAC's joint facility with the Ottawa Public Library, actually opened on its targeted "summer 2026" date, since the archived series ends before that date with the facility still under preparation.

Backgrounder summary

LAC was established in 2004 under the Library and Archives of Canada Act, S.C. 2004, c. 11, merging the former National Library of Canada and National Archives of Canada into a single institution. Section 7 of the Act sets its objects: acquiring and preserving documentary heritage of national significance, making it accessible, serving as the permanent repository of government publications and records, facilitating government information management, and coordinating library services across government. LAC is presided over by the Minister of Canadian Heritage (s.4), with day-to-day leadership held by the Librarian and Archivist of Canada. It organizes its work under two core responsibilities — acquiring/preserving documentary heritage and providing access to it — and reports a ~$208.2M total departmental budget for 2025–26 ($72.9M acquiring/preserving, $91.0M access, $44.3M internal services; 1,061 planned FTEs). All figures below are traced to archived documents read for this brief, not restated from the backgrounder alone.

Series inventory

The registry holds 14 documents in two eras with a roughly 16-year gap between them: five "departmental-plan" records from the pre-LAC/early-LAC period (2001–2005, all titled as National Archives of Canada Reports on Plans and Priorities per their own metadata), and nine current-era LAC Departmental Plans ("strategic-plan," 5) and Departmental Results Reports ("results-report," 4) spanning 2022–2026. The table below lists documents in actual chronological reading order (Departmental Plans are tabled in Parliament each spring, before the fiscal year they cover starts; Departmental Results Reports for the same fiscal-year label are published the following autumn, after year-end) rather than strictly by the year field, which reflects each document's covered/publication year, not its position in the reporting cycle.

document id year type archive ref sha256-12 content read?
fed-library-archives-canada-dp-2001 2001 departmental-plan 3d1349d12047 no — stub (bilingual "Information Archived on the Web" redirect notice only; target PDF not captured)
fed-library-archives-canada-dp-2002 2002 departmental-plan 37c7e15b2de4 no — stub (same redirect notice)
fed-library-archives-canada-dp-2003 2003 departmental-plan ce92581ef012 no — stub (same redirect notice)
fed-library-archives-canada-dp-2004 2004 departmental-plan 4836e7739275 no — stub (same redirect notice)
fed-library-archives-canada-dp-2005 2005 departmental-plan 38c5ec370b62 no — stub (same redirect notice)
fed-library-archives-canada-sp-2022 2022 strategic-plan (Departmental Plan 2021–22) abea3f88f95e yes
fed-library-archives-canada-sp-2023 2023 strategic-plan (Departmental Plan 2022–23) 24179d522de7 yes
fed-library-archives-canada-drr-2022 2022 results-report (Results Report 2021–22) c32342fbfa94 yes
fed-library-archives-canada-sp-2024 2024 strategic-plan (Departmental Plan 2023–24) e87519aba08f yes
fed-library-archives-canada-drr-2023 2023 results-report (Results Report 2022–23) 65debbc97f78 yes
fed-library-archives-canada-sp-2025 2025 strategic-plan (Departmental Plan 2024–25) 6b7e2fb404d1 yes
fed-library-archives-canada-drr-2024 2024 results-report (Results Report 2023–24) dbd7a0ec338a yes
fed-library-archives-canada-sp-2026 2026 strategic-plan (Departmental Plan 2025–26) 3fbd429e01f5 yes
fed-library-archives-canada-drr-2025 2025 results-report (Results Report 2024–25) 9c0524393e9e yes

Note on the "Information Archived on the Web" text: this brief's task instructions flagged that this exact phrase has repeatedly shown up as a stub-content artifact in other orgs' series, and cautioned against pattern-matching blindly since it might be legitimate self-referential content for LAC's own series. Checked in context, it is not legitimate content here: all five dp-2001–2005 captures have content_type: text/html against target URLs ending in .pdf (publications.gc.ca), and their bodies are word-for-word identical bilingual gateway boilerplate ("Continuer vers la publication" / "Continue to publication") with no report content at all — a genuine capture failure, not LAC discussing its own web-archiving program.

Priority evolution

The predecessor-era documents (dp-2001 through dp-2005, covering National Archives of Canada Reports on Plans and Priorities for fiscal years 2000–01 through 2004–05) cannot be read at all — see Residuals & gaps. The chronological narrative below therefore starts in 2021.

Departmental Plan 2021–22 (sp-2022, abea3f88f95e), tabled ~early 2021: LAC's plan is organized around two strategic priorities — "optimizing its digital capacity" and "transforming its services" — explicitly framed as the vehicle for LAC's Vision 2030 initiative, launched spring 2020 and due to be finalized "by the spring of 2022." Concrete drivers named: a Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) rollout; construction starting 2021 on Ādisōke, a joint facility with the Ottawa Public Library targeted to open in 2025; and continued construction of a new Preservation Storage Facility in Gatineau, Quebec. Planned total spending: $143.4M (2021–22) rising to $180.2M (2022–23) on the strength of the Gatineau facility's substantial-completion payment, then $148.4M (2023–24). Planned FTEs: 1,010 → 1,004 → 987.

Departmental Plan 2022–23 (sp-2023, 24179d522de7), tabled ~early 2022: Same two strategic priorities retained. New elements: a stated intent to develop "an entirely new vision and strategic road map" (Vision 2030 itself), and — appearing only here in the whole series — a statement that LAC "will continue discussions on updating the 2004 Library and Archives of Canada Act to better reflect the mandate and responsibilities" it intends to fulfill. Ādisōke's official inauguration is now dated to 2026 (already later than the 2025 target in sp-2022). Reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the Indigenous Languages Act are named as central to the digital/service transformation for the first time at this level of detail.

Departmental Results Report 2021–22 (drr-2022, c32342fbfa94), published ~fall 2022: Actual spending $131.8M, 853 FTEs. Reports the DAMS deployed and piloted; 89,402 digital titles received (nearly double the prior year); Ādisōke named in August 2021 (Anishinābemowin for "storytelling," chosen by the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and Pikwàkanagàn Algonquin First Nations); construction contract awarded November 2021; opening pushed from 2025 to summer 2026 due to COVID-19 labour/material impacts, with an additional $48.3M in contingency funding allocated in July 2021 (on top of a $34.5M net-zero-carbon upgrade announced in the November 2020 Fall Economic Update). ATIP/access-to-information requests (11,469 received) tied explicitly to two class-action settlements: the Canadian Armed Forces–National Defence Sexual Misconduct (Heyder Beattie) and Federal Indian Day School class actions.

Departmental Plan 2023–24 (sp-2024, e87519aba08f), tabled ~early 2023: Continues the two-priority frame. Budget 2022 is reported to have committed $25 million to LAC over three years beginning 2022–23 (allocation not itemized against a single named initiative in the surrounding text). The funded-initiatives list gains a new line — "Implementing the federal framework to address the legacy of residential schools, announced in Budget 2022 (2022–23 to 2024–25)" — alongside the pre-existing Federal Pathway to Address Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Budget 2021). A partnership with the University of Toronto on the Muslims in Canada Archives (MiCA) initiative is named. Total planned spending: $203.8M (2023–24, per this plan's own Main Estimates figure), declining to $192.6M (2024–25) and $173.3M (2025–26) in the plan's own forward projections — the first sign of a declining multi-year spending profile in the series.

Departmental Results Report 2022–23 (drr-2023, 65debbc97f78), published ~fall 2023: Actual spending $200.5M, 920 FTEs — a roughly $69M / 67-FTE jump over 2021–22, "powered by" the newly published Vision 2030 strategic plan (released in calendar 2022). Concrete milestones: new user-focused website launched August 2022; Preservation Storage Facility officially opened November 2022; response to the Office of the Information Commissioner's (OIC) systemic investigation into ATIP backlogs implemented with "greatly increased" resources; LAC's first Accessibility Plan released December 2022 (barrier-removal target by 2040); an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Centre of Excellence established. The Minister of Canadian Heritage signing this report is Pascale St-Onge, a change from Pablo Rodriguez in the two prior documents.

Departmental Plan 2024–25 (sp-2025, 6b7e2fb404d1), tabled ~early 2024: Minister St-Onge. Priorities: continuing reconciliation, with a commitment to "begin to review and implement a new version of its Indigenous Heritage Action Plan" over the following two years (digitizing six million Federal Indian Day School records specifically named); improving ATIP services via an "ATIP Action Plan"; continuing Ādisōke construction and service transformation; and — new at this level of formality — an Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA) "organizational strategy" and Centre of Excellence as an explicit fourth pillar.

Departmental Results Report 2023–24 (drr-2024, dbd7a0ec338a), published ~fall 2024: Actual spending $216.9M, 1,126 FTEs (the series' largest single-year jump). Ādisōke reported 53% complete, on schedule for 2026. LAC's collections were searched online 52 million times; the 1931 census was published online; 97,927 items were treated for mould as part of ongoing collection-preservation work. Budget 2023's economy-wide "Refocusing Government Spending" exercise ($14.1B over five years federally, $4.1B/year ongoing) is named for the first time as a factor shaping LAC's planned-spending profile. A new funded initiative — support for the government's response to the LGBT Purge Class Action Final Settlement Agreement (2023–24 to 2026–27) — appears in the multi-year funding tables for the first time.

Departmental Plan 2025–26 (sp-2026, 3fbd429e01f5), tabled ~spring 2025: The "From the Minister" front matter now names Steven Guilbeault as "Minister of Canadian Culture and Identity, Parks Canada and Quebec Lieutenant" — a renamed and reconfigured portfolio, distinct from the "Minister of Canadian Heritage" title used in every prior document in this series. Confusingly, the document's own Corporate Information section (boilerplate, likely stale at publication) still lists Pascale St-Onge as "Minister of Canadian Heritage" — see Residuals & gaps. Substantively: Ādisōke is targeted for a "summer 2026" opening with an estimated 1.7 million annual visitors; artificial intelligence is named for the first time as a tool ("leveraging artificial intelligence to support our transcription endeavours"); continued work on descriptions of Chinese-immigration-era archives and increasing Indigenous control over records concerning their own histories is named. Total planned spending for 2025–26 is $208,150,119 with 1,061 planned FTEs — both figures matching the backgrounder's $208.2M/1,061-FTE citation. The plan's own forward table shows planned spending declining further to $176.2M (2026–27) and $143.0M (2027–28), with FTEs falling to 1,012 and 827 respectively.

Departmental Results Report 2024–25 (drr-2025, 9c0524393e9e), published ~fall 2025 — the most recent archived document: Actual spending $212.4M, 1,201 FTEs (the series' peak headcount). The Minister is again Steven Guilbeault, but the document's own copyright block instead names him "Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages" — a third distinct portfolio wording within the same calendar year, inconsistent with sp-2026's front-matter wording (see Residuals & gaps). Substantively, FY2024–25 marked LAC's 20th anniversary. Five key priorities are named explicitly for the first time in a single consolidated list: deepening reconciliation via the Indigenous Heritage Action Plan; stabilizing the ATIP function; transforming services to attract new audiences; improving access via digitization and metadata; and integrating EDIA principles throughout. ATIP results: over 15,000 requests closed (6,000 from backlog), 72% processed within legislated time limits, 4.5 million pages proactively opened via "block review." Ādisōke's Audience Framework was finalized and its inaugural exhibition ("Readers' Choice: Two Centuries of Canadian Bestsellers," working title) developed, but the facility itself had not yet opened as of this report.

Priorities added, dropped, renamed

Budget & mandate inflection points

Ontario/Toronto relevance

LAC's documented physical footprint sits in Ottawa and the Gatineau/Renfrew area, not Toronto. Its headquarters (395 Wellington Street) and its flagship new joint facility, Ādisōke, are both in Ottawa, Ontario (sp-2022, abea3f88f95e; drr-2022, c32342fbfa94; sp-2026, 3fbd429e01f5). LAC also operates a collections storage warehouse in Renfrew, Ontario (sp-2024, e87519aba08f, describing container transfers "from two facilities: the Preservation Centre in Gatineau, Quebec, and the warehouse in Renfrew, Ontario"). The Preservation Centre and Preservation Storage Facility — LAC's other major infrastructure investment across the series — are across the river in Gatineau, Quebec, not Ontario. LAC's national service points are named consistently across the series as Ottawa, Halifax, Winnipeg and Vancouver (sp-2022; drr-2022); Toronto is never listed among them, and no archived document establishes an LAC office, service point or facility in the City of Toronto.

Toronto/GTA relevance in this series is real but indirect, running through partnership and acquisition relationships rather than physical presence: a national bilingual children's-literacy program, the TD Summer Reading Club, is described as "led by Toronto Public Library in partnership with LAC" (drr-2022, c32342fbfa94; drr-2023, 65debbc97f78); a research partnership with the University of Toronto on the Muslims in Canada Archives (MiCA) initiative is named (sp-2024, e87519aba08f); two acquired feature films are noted as having won awards at the Toronto International Film Festival (drr-2023, 65debbc97f78); the private-archive fonds of John Palmer, founder of Toronto Free Theatre, was acquired (drr-2022, c32342fbfa94); and the Archives of Ontario and the Ontario Library Association appear as sector partners (drr-2022; drr-2025, 9c0524393e9e). None of this amounts to a documented Toronto operational footprint — an honest read of the series does not support characterizing LAC as having a Toronto presence, only a set of partnership and content relationships with Toronto-based institutions.

Residuals & gaps