Referencing at Canadian universities: APA, MLA or McGill Guide

Canadian universities do not share one citation style. No national body sets one: the department, and often the instructor, names it in the course outline. McGill Library's first answer to "Which style should I use?" is to check the course outline (McGill Library, 2026b). What the libraries publish is a pattern: APA in the social sciences and health, MLA in literature, Chicago in history, IEEE in engineering, Vancouver in the health sciences, and the McGill Guide in law.

This guide is EdCitation's. We read each source on 27 September 2026: library guides, calendars and codes from McGill, the University of Toronto (UofT), UBC, Queen's, Alberta, Waterloo, Calgary, Lethbridge and Université Laval. Simon Fraser University's government-documents guide answered with a robot check, so it is left out. At the end, the exact output of two free EdCitation tools, Cite a source and Verify references, is set out for Canadian sources, faults and all.

APA or MLA at a Canadian university: which citation style do Canadian universities use?

Whichever your course outline sets. When it sets none, email the instructor before writing a line. Where the outline is silent, the department's habit decides, and the table shows what named Canadian libraries say those habits are.

Where Canadian libraries disagree

The same style is described differently from campus to campus. McGill says MLA is used "primarily in the humanities"; UBC Okanagan says MLA is common in the humanities and social sciences. Queen's says Chicago is widely used in the humanities and social science, "and history in particular", while McGill's overview files Chicago under the humanities. Waterloo's computer science guide lists three styles and names none as the rule. Neither side is wrong: each describes its own university, which is why the outline outranks this table.

The edition matters too. McGill and UBC Okanagan point to APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago 18; Queen's still links Chicago's 17th edition beside the 18th. The current editions are compared in our guide to APA, MLA or Chicago.

Which style goes with which subject at Canadian universities?

Subject by subject, most of the libraries we read agree, and law and French-language programmes are the two exceptions.

Social sciences and health: APA 7

APA is the style of the social sciences at McGill, Alberta and UofT. UofT's writing advice, written by Margaret Procter, groups the social sciences under APA's parenthetical author-date references and tells students to ask the instructor when to include page numbers (Procter, n.d.). McGill adds health and "some arts & science disciplines". Build the entry in Cite a source for APA 7, then correct the title to sentence case where the record keeps capitals.

Literature and history: MLA 9 and Chicago

MLA belongs to literature at McGill and Queen's. Chicago belongs to history, and McGill's Chicago page says the humanities prefer its notes and bibliography system, while the sciences and social sciences use its author-date system (McGill Library, 2026a). Of Chicago's two systems, EdCitation builds only author-date, in the 18th edition. A history paper that asks for footnotes needs them written from the department's own guide; where author-date is accepted, see Chicago author-date referencing.

Engineering and health sciences: IEEE and Vancouver

IEEE is "commonly used in Engineering especially in Electrical and Computer Engineering" at Queen's, and McGill extends it to computer science and technology. University of Toronto Libraries (2026) list IEEE first for engineering, then AIAA, SAE, ACS, APA, Vancouver and AMA, and tell students to check with the instructor. Vancouver is the health sciences style at McGill, Queen's and Laval's pharmacy faculty. See our IEEE and Vancouver guides.

How do law students cite in Canada: the McGill Guide?

In the law guides we read, students cite with the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, known as the McGill Guide, in footnotes. The McGill Law Journal (2023) released the 10th edition in June 2023, published by Thomson Carswell, and says a new edition appears every four years. It is sold in print, and its online version is on Westlaw Canada, a subscription service. The University of Calgary Library (2026) calls its own page a quick reference for footnoting common Canadian legal citations, from that 10th edition.

There is now a free alternative. The Canadian Open Access Legal Citation Guide, COAL-RJAL, was released in June 2024 and is hosted on CanLII, led by a law librarian at UBC with editors from 17 universities (CanLII, 2024). A revised edition in July 2025 clarified how to cite generative AI and added sections on reports, dissertations and treaties between First Nations, Métis and Inuit and the Crown (Loumankis, 2025). Laval's law faculty suggests the McGill Guide and Quebec's Guide Lluelles.

EdCitation does not build the McGill Guide, COAL-RJAL or Guide Lluelles. Law footnotes are written by hand from the guide your faculty names.

How do you cite Canadian government sources in APA 7?

In APA 7, name the most specific agency as the author, and leave the publisher out when it is the same body. The University of Lethbridge Library (2026) gives that rule, and dates each example as closely as the source allows, down to the month for a Health Canada report of December 2008. A worked example, with the page's "Date modified" line as its date:

Statistics Canada. (2008, November 14). How to cite Statistics Canada products: About this citation guide. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/12-591-x/2006001/4113851-eng.htm

Queen's University Library (2025) orders government documents differently, from the jurisdiction down through each department, as in "Canada. Parliament. House of Commons." Its examples are not APA 7, so an APA course takes Lethbridge's order.

For statistics, go to the agency itself. Statistics Canada (2008) publishes its own citation guide, which names the elements a reference needs, the catalogue number among them, and says to lay them out in your institution's style.

How do you cite an Elder or Knowledge Keeper?

With a template made for the purpose, because MLA and APA offer none. The University of Alberta Libraries (2026a) say so, and share a template developed by NorQuest College: unlike other personal communications, an Elder or Knowledge Keeper is cited in the text and in the reference list. The reference gives:

1. Surname and initial.
2. Nation or community.
3. Treaty territory, if applicable.
4. Where they live, if applicable.
5. The topic, such as an oral teaching.
6. The words "personal communication", then the date.

Alberta adds that anyone approaching an Elder for teachings should follow protocol, and ask about it first if unsure. UBC Okanagan points to UBC Library's own Indigenous citation guide. Cite a source cannot build these entries: there is no published record to look up.

Citing in French in Canada: what do francophone universities ask for?

Francophone universities set styles by faculty too, and several use a French adaptation of APA rather than the English original. Université Laval (n.d.) lists its suggested styles faculty by faculty:

• Kinesiology and administration: a French-adapted version of APA ("version francisée du style APA").
• Pharmacy: Vancouver, after the NLM's Citing Medicine.
• English literatures and the languages school: MLA, with APA also listed for languages.
• Art history: Dionne, a footnote style.
• Law: the McGill Guide or Guide Lluelles.
• Graduate theses: whatever the thesis supervisor decides.

Its philosophy faculty suggests none, and the professor has the last word. Université de Montréal's adaptation, set out in our guide to French citation norms, changes words such as et for & and s. d. for n.d. EdCitation builds APA in English only, so a French-APA list needs those words changed by hand.

What do Canadian academic integrity policies say about references?

Each university writes its own, and they differ. Eaton (2017) compared twenty English-speaking Canadian universities' calendars, policies and codes and found "wide variation" in how they define plagiarism.

UofT's Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters makes it an offence to represent another's idea or its expression as one's own, and a separate offence to submit work containing a "reference to a source which has been concocted" (University of Toronto Governing Council, 2019). An invented reference, the kind AI tools produce, is named in its own clause. The code applies to what a student did knowingly, and treats an offence as knowing where the student ought reasonably to have known.

UBC's calendar defines plagiarism as presenting another person's work as one's own "without appropriate referencing", and makes students responsible for making sure submitted work is not plagiarised, including work done with a tutor's help (University of British Columbia, n.d.). Griffith (2013), reading Ontario universities' academic integrity websites, found most of them aimed to educate rather than punish. Penalties follow each university's own procedure, so read yours rather than assuming. Our guide to checking that a reference is real covers the invented kind.

Build a Canadian university reference list, step by step

1. Find the style and edition in the course outline; if it is missing, ask the instructor.
2. Note whether the course wants French APA, a law guide or an Elder citation: EdCitation builds none of these, so write them from their own templates.
3. Give EdCitation's Cite a source the DOI, ISBN or web address of each source, and copy the entry it builds.
4. Fix what a record cannot know: APA's sentence-case titles, the agency as author on government pages, and the date the page shows.
5. Put the finished list into Verify references, and settle each entry marked "check this" before you submit.

What did EdCitation return on Canadian sources?

For this job EdCitation is the strongest free choice: every entry starts from the publisher's own record, so nothing in it is invented, and a chatbot that composes references cannot offer that. In the runs below, authors, volumes, pages and DOIs all came out right, and every fault traced back to what a record said or left out. Cite a source sets an entry in Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, APA 7, MLA 9 or Chicago 18 author-date without an account, and nothing EdCitation does writes a word of a student's paper. Output is quoted as plain text.

What Cite a source built from three Canadian articles and a government page

For 10.1503/cmaj.171538, a CMAJ article, the APA entry was correct: "Hyett, S., Marjerrison, S., & Gabel, C. (2018). Improving health research among Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 190(20), E616–E621. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.171538" (Hyett et al., 2018). The Vancouver entry used the NLM abbreviation, "CMAJ. 2018 May 22;190(20):E616-21".

For 10.47678/cjhe.vi0.189783, in the Canadian Journal of Higher Education, APA gave "Eaton, S. E., Stoesz, B. M., Crossman, K., Garwood, K., & McKenzie, A. (2023). Faculty perspectives of academic integrity during COVID-19: A mixed methods study of four Canadian universities." The record's title-case title came back in the sentence case APA wants, with COVID-19 and Canadian kept. One thing to check: the record dates it 2023, while Érudit labels its issue, volume 52, number 3, as 2022. We could not confirm from APA's own pages which year it wants here, so ask your library or instructor.

For 10.47678/cjhe.v43i1.2216, every style used the record's title, "Pedagogical or punitive?: The academic integrity websites of Ontario universities". The article's own first page reads "Pedagogical Over Punitive". Compare the title with the article itself.

Nothing on Statistics Canada's page about its citation guide gave the tool an author or a date, so the APA entry opened with the title: "How to Cite Statistics Canada Products: About this citation guide. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2026, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/12-591-x/2006001/4113851-eng.htm". The page shows "Date modified: 2008-11-14". After we entered Statistics Canada as the author, marked it as an organisation and gave the date, APA returned the correct entry shown in the government section above.

Verify references on six entries

Six APA entries went into Verify references, one misdated on purpose:

• Eaton and colleagues (2023), DOI included, came back verified: "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
• Hyett and colleagues, given no DOI, were also verified: "Title, year and first author match a published record."
• Griffith, entered under the title printed on the article, "Pedagogical over punitive", matched despite the record's other wording.
• Eaton's 2017 policy study, which we dated 2018: "check this", "The work was published in 2017, not 2018". Right.
• The McGill Guide, 10th edition, 2023: "check this", "A book with this title and author is catalogued, but no edition from 2023 is recorded." The edition is real; the catalogue it reached did not show it, and "check this" was the honest answer.
• The Statistics Canada page was found where the entry said: "The page is at this address, and its title matches."

Nothing in this run came back "could not check". Had one done so, EdCitation would have said exactly that: it never turns an unchecked reference into "not found". Find sources was not run for this guide. A full thesis can be checked in one upload with References from a file, included in Pro ($8 a month), which checks every in-text citation against the list; pricing has the rest.

Quick questions

Do Canadian universities use APA or MLA?

Both, by subject. The library guides we read give APA to the social sciences and health and MLA to literature, and the course outline decides.

What citation style does UofT use?

None for the whole university in the guides we read. UofT's writing advice gives APA to the social sciences and MLA or footnotes to the humanities, and each course names its own.

Can EdCitation build McGill Guide citations?

No. EdCitation's Cite a source builds six styles, none of them a legal one, so McGill Guide and COAL-RJAL footnotes are written by hand.

Is the McGill Guide free?

No. The 10th edition is sold in print and online through Westlaw Canada, and law libraries such as Calgary's hold copies. COAL-RJAL, a free alternative, is on CanLII.

Is a made-up reference an academic offence in Canada?

At the University of Toronto, yes: its code names submitting a reference to a concocted source as an offence of its own.

References

• CanLII. (2024, July 9). The Canadian Open Access Legal Citation Guide is now accessible on CanLII. The CanLII Blog. https://blog.canlii.org/2024/07/09/the-canadian-open-access-legal-citation-guide-is-now-accessible-online/
• Eaton, S. E. (2017). Comparative analysis of institutional policy definitions of plagiarism: A pan-Canadian university study. Interchange, 48(3), 271–281. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-017-9300-7
• Griffith, J. (2013). Pedagogical over punitive: The academic integrity websites of Ontario universities. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 43(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.47678/cjhe.v43i1.2216
• Hyett, S., Marjerrison, S., & Gabel, C. (2018). Improving health research among Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 190(20), E616–E621. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.171538
• Loumankis, A. (2025, July 24). Revised edition of COAL-RJAL citation guide now published. Slaw. https://www.slaw.ca/2025/07/24/revised-edition-of-coal-rjal-citation-guide-now-published/
• McGill Law Journal. (2023). Canadian guide to uniform legal citation (10th ed.). Thomson Carswell. https://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/cite-guide/
• McGill Library. (2026a). Chicago (18th edition). Citation Style Guide. https://libraryguides.mcgill.ca/citations/chicago
• McGill Library. (2026b). Citation styles. Citation Style Guide. https://libraryguides.mcgill.ca/citations
• Procter, M. (n.d.). Standard documentation formats. Writing Advice, University of Toronto. https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/using-sources/documentation/
• Queen's University Library. (n.d.). Citing & citation management. https://library.queensu.ca/help-how-to/topics/citing-citation-management
• Queen's University Library. (2025). Brief guide to citing Canadian government documents and statistics. https://guides.library.queensu.ca/gov/thematic-guides/citation
• Statistics Canada. (2008, November 14). How to cite Statistics Canada products: About this citation guide. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/12-591-x/2006001/4113851-eng.htm
• UBC Okanagan Library. (n.d.). Citation style guides. University of British Columbia. https://library.ok.ubc.ca/guides-and-tools/citation-style-guides/
• Université Laval. (n.d.). Styles bibliographiques. Bibliothèque. https://www.bibl.ulaval.ca/services/soutien-a-lapprentissage/citation-de-sources/styles-bibliographiques
• University of Alberta Libraries. (2026a). Indigenous citation styles. Indigenous Research. https://guides.library.ualberta.ca/citing/indigenous
• University of Alberta Libraries. (2026b). Introduction and resources. APA Citation Style (7th Edition). https://guides.library.ualberta.ca/apa-citation-style
• University of British Columbia. (n.d.). 3. Academic misconduct by UBC students. UBC Vancouver Academic Calendar. https://vancouver.calendar.ubc.ca/campus-wide-policies-and-regulations/student-conduct-and-discipline/discipline-academic-misconduct/3-academic-misconduct-ubc-students
• University of Calgary Library. (2026). LAW legal citation (McGill Guide) quick reference. https://libguides.ucalgary.ca/guides/mcgillguide
• University of Lethbridge Library. (2026). Government reports and grey literature. APA Citation Style, Seventh Edition. https://library.ulethbridge.ca/apa7style/othersources/government
• University of Toronto Governing Council. (2019). Code of behaviour on academic matters. https://governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/secretariat/policies/code-behaviour-academic-matters-july-1-2019
• University of Toronto Libraries. (2026). Writing & citing in engineering. Research Guides. https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/writeciteengineering
• University of Waterloo Library. (2026). Computer science: Cite and write. https://subjectguides.uwaterloo.ca/compsci/cite