Understand Parliament in minutes,
not hours.
La Fontaine provides clear summaries of federal bills and petitions, helps you follow the issues you care about, and keeps you informed with smart notifications based on public open data from the Parliament of Canada.
What is La Fontaine?
La Fontaine is a civic-tech app that helps people keep up with federal politics in Canada. It collects publicly available information about bills and petitions, summarizes the key points in plain language, and lets you follow the items and topics that matter to you.
Federal bills and petitions can be long and detailed. La Fontaine gives you a clear, human-readable overview so you can quickly understand:
- What the bill or petition is about
- What may change if it is adopted
- Where it is in the parliamentary process
Instead of checking several government pages or news sites, you can open La Fontaine to see a feed of recent activity for:
- Bills you follow
- Petitions you follow
- Policy areas you care about (for example, healthcare or immigration)
Key features
La Fontaine focuses on clarity and control: clear summaries so you can understand what is happening, and fine-grained controls so you decide what you want to follow.
Bill summaries (TL;DR)
Browse concise, plain-language summaries of federal bills. Each bill page brings together:
- A short summary of what the bill does
- Key points of interest for most people
- Its current stage in Parliament
- Links to the official full text and related debates
Petition tracking
Discover open and closed e-petitions, see how many signatures they have, and note when they close.
- View open and closed petitions
- See signature counts and closing dates
- Read government responses when available
- Follow petitions to add them to your personal list
Smart notifications
Choose which alerts you want to receive. La Fontaine lets you control notifications such as:
- New bills introduced in policy areas you follow
- Stage changes for bills you follow
- New petitions launched
- Petitions that are closing soon
You can change these preferences at any time from the settings screen.
Follow topics and items
Build a personalized view of Parliament by following:
- Specific bills
- Specific petitions
- Policy categories (for example, environment, economy, or justice)
Your followed items and preferences are saved to your account and synced across devices.
Who is La Fontaine for?
La Fontaine is built for anyone who wants to follow federal politics more closely, without needing to become a full-time researcher.
Engaged citizens and voters
- See what Parliament is working on between elections
- Understand bills that are mentioned in the news
- Follow issues that matter to you or your community
Volunteers and community organizers
- Prepare for conversations at the door or by phone
- Look up bill summaries quickly when someone asks questions
- Keep a short list of followed bills related to your work
Students, teachers, and researchers
- Use summaries as a starting point for deeper research
- Help students see how a bill moves through Parliament
- Explore petitions as examples of civic participation
Questions, feedback, or collaboration
La Fontaine is still evolving. If you are interested in collaborating, testing new features, or sharing feedback, we would be happy to hear from you.
You can reach the project team through our inquiry form:
Legal information & policies
Please review these documents to learn how La Fontaine handles your data and under what terms the service is provided.
La Fontaine uses official federal open data and public parliamentary documents. While every effort is made to keep the information current and accurate, the app is provided as a convenience tool. For official and legally authoritative information, please refer directly to the Parliament of Canada and Government of Canada websites.