Capitalization: Governments and government bodies

On this page

• Full titles of governments and government bodies
  • Intergovernmental organizations
  • National governments and their constituent parts
  • Provincial and territorial governments
  • Municipal governments
  • Government departments and agencies and their organizational subdivisions
  • Boards, committees and royal commissions
• Short forms for governments and government bodies
  • When to capitalize a short form
  • When not to capitalize a short form
• The word “government”
• Plural forms
• Additional information

Full titles of governments and government bodies

Capitalize the full titles of governments and government bodies at all levels, as in the examples below.

Intergovernmental organizations

• the North American Aerospace Defense Command
• the United Nations
• the European Union
• the Central American Parliament

National governments and their constituent parts

• the Government of Canada
• the Parliament of Canada
• the House of Commons
• the Senate of Canada
• the Crown
• the Government of the United Kingdom
• the House of Lords
• the Government of India

Provincial and territorial governments

• the Government of Prince Edward Island
• the Government of Nunavut

Municipal governments

• the Regional Municipality of York
• the City of Corner Brook

Government departments and agencies and their organizational subdivisions

• the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
• the Canada Border Services Agency
• the Audit and Evaluation Sector
• the Chief Information Officer Branch

Boards, committees and royal commissions

• the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
• the Technical Advisory Committee on Science and Knowledge
• the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences

Short forms for governments and government bodies

Follow the guidelines below when deciding whether to capitalize a short form for the title of a government or government body.

When to capitalize a short form

When short forms for the titles of government bodies stand for the full title and are intended to carry its full force, they are usually capitalized. This style is almost always used in in-house documents:

• The Government has adjourned for the summer.
• The message was circulated throughout the Department.

When not to capitalize a short form

Write short forms in lower case when they fall into one of the categories below.

Short forms used in a non-specific sense

• We have formed a committee to study the matter.

Short forms preceded by a possessive, demonstrative or other adjective

• Our section held its monthly meeting yesterday.
• This division has 60 employees.
• The Canadian (federal, provincial, present) government has issued a policy statement.

Short forms used as an adjective (or in an adjectival form)

• It’s important to observe the department (or departmental) rules and regulations.
• The question of parliamentary procedure was raised.
• Unfortunately, division practice doesn’t allow such an approach.
• The decision was based on government (or governmental) policy.

The word “government”

Except in in-house documents where the short form is meant to carry the weight of the full title (as noted above), the word government is generally lower-cased when not part of an official title:

• It is the policy within the government not to discuss matters before the courts.
• The Liberal government introduced this measure.

Plural forms

Do not capitalize the plural forms of government, department, division, etc., even when the full titles of the bodies are given:

• Representatives from the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon and the Northwest Territories were present.

Additional information

• Names of government departments (Linguistic recommendation from the Translation Bureau)
• Government of Canada (Linguistic recommendation from the Translation Bureau)
• Public service: Capitalization rules (Linguistic recommendation from the Translation Bureau)

Quizzes

• Capitalization: Names of government bodies