How we research, verify, and correct our guides.

Sources, in order of trust

Every factual claim — benefit amounts, income thresholds, office addresses, processing times — is checked against official primary sources before publication: Canada.ca, the CRA, Service Canada, IRCC, and BC government pages. Where a guide cites a number, the References section at the bottom links to where it came from. News coverage and third-party blogs are used for leads, never as the final source of a number.

First-hand experience, honestly labelled

When an article says "I did this," Wendy did it. When the experience is someone else's — a friend's application, a reader's situation — the article says so. Screenshots of government websites are captured by us and labelled with the month they were taken, because those pages change. We don't publish reviews of products we haven't used.

Dates and updates

Every article shows its publication date and, when revised, an updated date. Benefit figures are tied to a stated benefit year (for example, "July 2025 to June 2026") rather than left vague. When a program changes — as the GST/HST credit did when it became the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit — we update the guide rather than leaving stale advice up.

Corrections

Found a mistake? Email wendy.huang.0813@gmail.com. Errors are corrected in the article itself, the updated date is bumped, and material corrections are noted in the text. We'd rather flag our own past errors than hide them — several guides openly correct addresses and rules that earlier versions (and other blogs) got wrong.

How money works here

Some links are affiliate links, disclosed on every article that carries them and explained in full in our affiliate disclosure. Commissions never decide what we recommend — comparison verdicts are written before affiliate availability is checked, and several of our "best for newcomers" picks pay us nothing. We don't publish sponsored content disguised as advice.