Represent by Open North API
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.
{
"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.
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.
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.
Measured Score Breakdown
Live HTTP request to the API endpoint
Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026
Technical Specifications
Related Tags
Similar APIs
View All →Bank Negara Malaysia Open Data
⭐ Beginner's PickBank Negara Malaysia Open Data provides free access to official financial data published by Malaysia's central bank, including exchange rates, interest rates, and key economic indicators.
BCLaws
BCLaws gives you free access to the full text of British Columbia's laws and regulations.
Brazil
⭐ Beginner's PickBrasilAPI is a free, community-driven API that centralizes public data about Brazil in one easy-to-use place.
Brazil Central Bank Open Data
The Brazil Central Bank Open Data API provides free access to official financial and economic data from Brazil s central bank (Banco Central do Brasil).
Brazil Receita WS
Brazil Receita WS lets you look up official information about Brazilian companies using their CNPJ (tax registration number).