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Government Information: Canada: General and Background Research (Details)

Canadian Government Information

General Government Gateways

Newspapers, Magazines, and the Popular Press

News and Popular Magazine Articles

Users may also wish to consult the Hill Times, a politics and government weekly newspaper which is especially useful for detailed, insider, information.

Tip: If you become overwhelmed by the number of repetitive articles you find, try restricting the sources. Certain news sources fulfill a role as “newspapers of record” and provide excellent and detailed coverage of Canadian politics and current affairs. Unless the issue is a regional one, you may wish to start off restricting yourself to two or three major papers such as the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the National Post. Factiva works best if you opt to go this route:

See also:  Guide to Finding Newspapers Articles

Scholarly Journals

Scholarly Journal Articles 

Tip: It takes some time for academic articles to be researched, written, and accepted for publication. Don’t count on finding one unless the issue has been around for some time or is very significant.

Books

Try searching OMNI by keyword first. If you this too many items, use the Advanced Search and limit by searching the subject fields. Most of the time, if a book is on Canadian government policy, the word Canada will appear in the subject field. You can search for as many different concepts as you wish, limiting yourself to searching the subject field and linking them together by selecting AND on the left. A search might look like this: 

Think Tanks and Grey Literature

The term 'Grey Literature' refers to materials and research produced by organizations such as academic departments and centres, think tanks and other non-governmental organizations, corporations, and other stakeholders. Grey literature take many forms and they may be referred to as reports (technical, research, etc.), working papers, white papers, project evaluation documents, and so on. They are usually distributed outside of the normal publishing and distribution channels and can be hard to find. They are, however, valuable resources when researching public policy and many of them can be found using the tools listed here: