Canada and Quebec email-authentication benchmark 2026 ===================================================== Status: Published 2026-08-14T19:40:00.000Z Audience: Canadian national, provincial, Quebec and sector publications Contact target: 60–100 national, provincial, Quebec and sector reporters or associations Plain-language summary A DNS measurement of 1,030 sourced Canadian organization-domain pairs with provincial and sector breakdowns, built from official organization lists rather than assuming every .ca domain represents a Canadian organization. Key findings - 1,028 of 1,030 organization-domain pairs were observed during the recorded scan window. - DMARC adoption was 81.3% (836/1028); enforcement among publishers was 55.7% (466/836). - Listed-company enforcement was 86.4% (57/66) versus 61.6% (188/305) among Ontario municipalities. - 25.6% (78/305) of municipal DMARC publishers had no aggregate-reporting address. - Quebec measured 95.9% DMARC adoption (94/98) and 84.0% enforcement (79/94). Its 98 observations remain below the 100-domain standalone-page gate. - The cohort is sourced and transparent but is not a representative sample of every Canadian business. Ontario contributes the complete municipal-directory slice, and the national aggregate is not province-weighted. Embargo approach Offer national and Quebec first looks concurrently, with tailored charts rather than competing exclusives. Pitch angles - Local: A province-specific finding backed by a transparent denominator and national comparison. - Operational: Where reporting and SPF configuration stall otherwise valid DMARC programs. - Standards: What transparent public-DNS measurements can and cannot show about provincial and sector email-authentication readiness. Methodology - Retain row-level source URLs, source dates, licence notes and verification status for every organization-domain pair. Federal mappings come from the official departments and agencies directory cross-checked against organization reference data. - Use official organization website hostnames as scan targets. Consolidate health facilities at the system level while retaining legitimately shared domains across distinct organizations. - Suppress provincial or sector metrics below 30 observations; keep standalone province pages unpublished unless they meet the stricter 100-domain gate. Limitations - The cohort is a sourced benchmark, not a representative sample of every Canadian business. - Ontario contributes the complete official 2026 municipal-directory slice and therefore has substantially more observations than other provinces. National figures are not province-weighted. - The health-system and 70-company TSX slices cover selected major organizations, not every Canadian health provider or listed issuer. - An official organization website hostname may differ from alternate mail or campaign sending domains. The study measures the published DNS state of the sourced hostname only. - DNS state does not measure phishing incidents, mail delivery or internal controls. Publication policy Publish aggregate results only. No province receives an indexable page until it independently clears the observation, findings, sourcing and outreach gates. Sources - Government of Canada organization reference data: https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/57180b36-3428-4a7f-afe3-2161a6b44ec5, Active federal-organization inventory; organization-specific hostnames were supplied by the official departments and agencies directory. - Government of Canada departments and agencies: https://www.canada.ca/en/government/dept.html, Current official organization links used for federal hostname mappings. - Ontario municipality directory: https://data.ontario.ca/dataset/municipal-services-and-contact-information, Official 2026 organization names and municipal website links; one incorrect county link was corrected against the county's official homepage and recorded in source QA. - Statistics Canada healthcare-facilities database: https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/lode/databases/odhf, Starting inventory for health systems and facilities. - TMX listed-company directory: https://www.tsx.com/en/listings/listing-with-us/listed-company-directory, Current-listing verification for a 70-company slice of major Canadian-headquartered issuers; every domain was checked against the official company site. Suggested citation Palisade. “Canada and Quebec email-authentication benchmark 2026.” 2026-08-14. https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026 Reusable charts - adoption (SVG): https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026/charts/adoption.svg - adoption (PNG): https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026/charts/adoption.png - reporting (SVG): https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026/charts/reporting.svg - reporting (PNG): https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026/charts/reporting.png - spf (SVG): https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026/charts/spf.svg - spf (PNG): https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026/charts/spf.png - bimi (SVG): https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026/charts/bimi.svg - bimi (PNG): https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026/charts/bimi.png Visible attribution: Source: Palisade: Canada and Quebec email-authentication benchmark 2026 (https://www.palisade.email/research/canada-email-authentication-2026), CC BY 4.0.