Evidence governance

Data sources and evidence

Unknown stays unknown, and material claims keep their provenance.

Last reviewed
Reviewed by
Rostislav Sikora
Next review due

Source hierarchy

Authority depends on the claim and jurisdiction; sources do not all carry identical weight. We normally prefer:

  1. Canadian government
  2. Regulator
  3. Municipality
  4. Official assistance or program administrator
  5. Official utility or provider
  6. Authoritative public institution
  7. Permitted secondary evidence when necessary

Verification and uncertainty

Evidence can be verified, partially verified, unverified, stale, conflicting or review-required. Conflicting sources are not silently reconciled. Service area, historical validity and the source's ability to support the specific fact matter.

Freshness is evidence-specific

Generating a new Shortfall Plan does not make old source evidence newly verified. Decision generation time and evidence review time stay separate.

Review governance

Content and evidence use explicit creation, review and due dates, named ownership, source identifiers and methodology versions where those facts genuinely exist. The site build clock never supplies a review or verification date.