We built The Receipts to make public information easier to verify. We separate what's documented from what's interpretation, and we show our work so you can disagree without guessing what's true. If we get something wrong, we correct it publicly.
How every article works
Every piece on this site uses the same structure. Each element exists for a specific reason.
Every factual claim is sourced to a specific primary document: legislation, audit findings, committee testimony, regulatory filings, official data, or court records. If we cannot source it, we do not publish it. Sources are listed at the bottom of every article and archived at time of access.
In every article, we identify what critics of a position conveniently leave out — and what supporters conveniently leave out. The goal is to give you the full picture, including the parts that are inconvenient for both sides, so you can form your own judgment.
We have views. The difference is that we label them. When we move from documented fact to analytical judgment, we tell you — in this box. Every interpretation includes a counter-interpretation: the strongest honest argument against our reading. If the counter-interpretation is stronger than ours, we say so.
Every article describes what specific evidence would prove our interpretation wrong. If we can't define what would falsify our view, we don't have an analysis — we have a belief. If the falsifying condition is met, we update the piece.
What we don't do
We don't claim to know why people make decisions — we describe mechanisms, incentives, and documented outcomes. We don't use words like "corrupt," "illegal," or "fraud" unless an authoritative body has made that determination. We don't call for votes, donations, or political action. We don't take advertising, sponsorships, or paid placements. We hold no financial positions in any asset we cover, and we have no affiliation with any political party, think tank, or financial institution.
Who we cover
Our focus is on governments that hold the power to govern: the ability to write legislation, allocate public money, appoint officials, and set regulatory policy. That is where accountability matters most, because that is where decisions have consequences for people who didn't choose them.
We do not publish governance critiques of opposition parties — not because they are beyond scrutiny, but because they do not govern. They do not control budgets, sign contracts, or exempt companies from laws. When they gain power, they will receive the same treatment as every government before them.
How to audit us
Source archiving. Every primary source is archived at time of access. Government documents move, get revised, or disappear. We preserve the version we cited.
Corrections ledger. We maintain a public corrections record. When we get something wrong, we correct it visibly, record what changed and when, and preserve both versions. If you believe something on this site is inaccurate, contact tips@thereceipts.ca with the specific claim and your evidence.
No tracking. No cookies, no analytics that identify visitors, no third-party scripts, no ads. We apply the same transparency standard to ourselves that we apply to the institutions we cover.
Why this exists
Trust in Canadian media has been declining for years. Multiple institutional surveys — Reuters, Ipsos, Edelman — consistently find that fewer than half of Canadians say they trust the news, and a majority believe outlets are more interested in advancing a position than reporting facts.
This isn't because journalists are bad at their jobs. Many Canadian outlets do excellent primary reporting. The issue is structural: editorial teams make choices about which stories to cover, which angle to lead with, and which context to include or exclude. These choices are shaped by audience, commercial incentives, and professional assumptions. The result is that the same set of facts reads differently depending on where you encounter them — and the reader who wants the unfiltered picture has to track down the original documents themselves.
Most people don't have time for that. The Receipts exists for the person who senses the coverage they're getting is incomplete, who doesn't have a fixed political identity, and who wants to understand an issue on its merits. We take the documents, translate them into plain language, show you what both sides are getting right and wrong, and give you the tools to make up your own mind.
That's it. No manifesto. Just the receipts.
Sources
- Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, "Digital News Report 2024 — Canada." University of Oxford. Published June 2024.
- Ipsos, "Canadians and the Media: Trust, Perception, and Consumption." Published January 2025.
- Edelman, "2025 Edelman Trust Barometer — Canada Results." Published January 2025.
If you believe any factual claim on this page is inaccurate, or if you have evidence that our editorial framework has not been applied consistently in a specific article, contact us. We hold ourselves to the same standard we apply to everyone else. tips@thereceipts.ca