Pass or Fail

About Pass or Fail

What it is

Pass or Fail is an independent website that makes Canadian restaurant health inspection records easy to find and understand. Canadian public-health authorities regularly inspect food-service establishments and make the results public, but those records are often buried in government portals that are hard to search. Pass or Fail puts that information one search away.

What the results mean

Each health authority publishes its inspection outcomes a little differently. The most common scheme across Canadian authorities uses three categories:

  • Pass — no significant violations found, or only minor issues that do not require follow-up.
  • Conditional Pass— violations were found that the establishment must correct; the inspector will follow up. Some authorities use different terms (for example, “reinspection required”) for the same outcome.
  • Closed — the establishment was ordered to close until violations are corrected.

Pass or Fail maps each authority’s native outcome labels to these categories where possible. The original outcome wording from the source authority is shown alongside. Some authorities use different schemes entirely (for example, hazard ratings on Vancouver Island, or court convictions in Québec). See How It Works for the full breakdown.

Where the data comes from

All inspection data comes directly from official sources published by the relevant public-health authorities:

  • Toronto — City of Toronto DineSafe programme, published under the City of Toronto Open Government Licence
  • Peel Region — Regional Municipality of Peel DineSafe programme (Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon)
  • Halton Region — Regional Municipality of Halton (Burlington, Oakville, Milton, Halton Hills)
  • York Region — Regional Municipality of York (Markham, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Newmarket, Aurora, and others)
  • Region of Waterloo — (Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge)
  • Ottawa — Ottawa Public Health
  • London, Ontario — Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU)
  • Hamilton, Ontario — Hamilton Public Health Services
  • Vancouver area — Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) (Vancouver, Richmond, Whistler, North Vancouver, West Vancouver)
  • BC Interior — Interior Health Authority (IHA) (Kelowna, Kamloops, Vernon, Penticton, and other BC Interior cities)
  • Vancouver Island — Island Health (VIHA) (Victoria, Nanaimo, Tofino, Parksville)
  • Alberta — Alberta Health Services (AHS) Environmental Public Health (Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge, and other Alberta municipalities)
  • Saskatchewan — Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) via the provincial Inspection InSite portal (Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw, Prince Albert)
  • Montréal — Ville de Montréal open data portal (donnees.montreal.ca). Note: The Province of Québec only publishes court convictions under the Food Products Act (Loi sur les produits alimentaires, P-29), not routine inspection results. A restaurant with no record here has not necessarily been inspected recently.
  • Québec— Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation du Québec (MAPAQ), via the provincial open data portal (donneesquebec.ca). Covers Brossard, Gatineau, Laval, Lévis, Longueuil, Québec City, Repentigny, Saguenay, Sherbrooke, and Terrebonne. Same caveat as Montréal: conviction records only, not routine inspections.
  • Additional cities as coverage expands across Canada

We do not conduct inspections or generate results. The data is reproduced as published by the relevant health authority. See our Terms of Use for important accuracy and timeliness limitations.

Coverage

Pass or Fail currently covers Toronto, the Peel Region (Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon), Halton Region, York Region, the Region of Waterloo, Ottawa, Hamilton, London (MLHU), the Vancouver Coastal Health area (Vancouver, Richmond, Whistler, North and West Vancouver), BC Interior (IHA), Vancouver Island (VIHA), Alberta (AHS), Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw, Prince Albert), Montréal, and ten other Québec cities (Brossard, Gatineau, Laval, Lévis, Longueuil, Québec City, Repentigny, Saguenay, Sherbrooke, Terrebonne). Inspection records are updated daily or weekly depending on the city, as new data is published by the relevant health authority. Québec cities show court conviction records only — see the note under each city for details.

Contact

Questions, feedback, or data correction requests: contact@passorfail.ca