Represent by Open North API

Beginner's Pick Government / No Auth Required Beginner HTTPS
Free to Use
68 C
Measured Score 0 50 100 Speed 11/30 Consistency 20/20 Security 18/20 Browser access 15/15 Transparency 4/15 TESTED 2026-08-10

Overview

The Represent API by Open North helps you find Canadian elected officials and government representatives based on location. It is free to use with no authentication required, making it beginner-friendly for civic tech projects. You can look up representatives for any Canadian address, postal code, or electoral district.

Beginner Tip

Start by querying with a postal code to get representatives for that area — it is the easiest way to get meaningful results immediately.

Measurement Record

What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.

Request
GET https://represent.opennorth.ca/postcodes/M5V0A1/
Result
HTTP 200 · application/json · 8,149 bytes
Response time
308 ms (median of 3) · fastest 295 ms
Transport
TLSv1.2 · ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 · certificate issued by Let's Encrypt
Browser CORS
Allowed — Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Served by
nginx
Recorded
2026-08-10

Fields Returned

Top-level fields present in the response we captured, with the type and value we actually received.

Field Type Value received
code string M5V0A1
city string TORONTO
province string ON
centroid object {2 fields}
boundaries_concordance array [0 items]
boundaries_centroid array [1 item]
representatives_centroid array [1 item]

Captured Response

Captured from a real request to https://represent.opennorth.ca/postcodes/M5V0A1/ on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.

JSON Response · Captured
{
  "code": "M5V0A1",
  "city": "TORONTO",
  "province": "ON",
  "centroid": {
    "type": "Point",
    "coordinates": [
      -79.388442
    ]
  },
  "boundaries_concordance": [],
  "boundaries_centroid": [
    {
      "url": "/boundaries/federal-electoral-districts/35101/",
      "name": "Spadina—Fort York",
      "related": {
        "…": "(1 more fields)"
      },
      "boundary_set_name": "Federal electoral district",
      "external_id": "35101"
    }
  ],
  "representatives_centroid": [
    {
      "name": "Chi Nguyen",
      "district_name": "Spadina—Harbourfront",
      "elected_office": "MP",
      "source_url": "https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/search?caucusId=all&province=all",
      "first_name": "Chi",
      "last_name": "Nguyen",
      "party_name": "Liberal",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "url": "https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/chi-nguyen(123192)",
      "personal_url": "",
      "photo_url": "https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/45/NguyenChi_Lib.jpg",
      "gender": "F",
      "offices": [
        {
          "…": "(4 more fields)"
        }
      ],
      "extra": {
        "…": "(1 more fields)"
      },
      "…": "(2 more fields)"
    }
  ]
}

Field Reference

representatives_centroid List of elected representatives for the geographic center of the queried location.
name Full name of the elected representative.
elected_office The office title the representative holds (e.g. MP, MPP, Mayor).
party_name The political party the representative belongs to.
email Contact email address of the representative, if available.
district_name The name of the electoral district the representative serves.

Implementation Example

Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.

Request
const url = "https://represent.opennorth.ca/postcodes/M5V0A1/";
const response = await fetch(url);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

What Can You Build?

Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.

How This API Fails

We deliberately sent this API a broken request and recorded exactly what came back on 2026-08-10. Knowing the shape of an error before you hit it makes error handling much easier to write.

HTTP 404 Requesting a path that does not exist text/html

Returned an HTML error page rather than JSON — worth knowing if your client assumes every response can be parsed as JSON.

Common Errors & Troubleshooting

Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.

404 Not Found The postal code or boundary set you queried does not exist in the database.
Verify the postal code is a valid Canadian postal code and try removing spaces (e.g. use M5V0A1 instead of M5V 0A1).
Empty representatives array The location may fall outside a supported boundary set or the data has not been loaded for that region.
Try specifying a different boundary set in the URL, such as /federal-electoral-districts/ instead of a provincial one.
Rate limit exceeded You have made too many requests in a short period.
Add a delay between requests and cache results for repeated queries on the same postal code.

Measured Score Breakdown

Live HTTP request to the API endpoint

Speed 11/30
Consistency 20/20
Security 18/20
Browser access 15/15
Transparency 4/15
Endpoint Response Time 308ms

Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026

Technical Specifications

Auth No Auth
HTTPS REQUIRED
CORS UNKNOWN
Category Government
Difficulty Beginner
Endpoint last called: 2026-08-10

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