Date and time notation in Canada

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While the Canadian Standards Association has adopted ISO 8601 as CSA Z234.5:1989,[1] its use is not mandated in every situation. Thus in Canada three date and time formats are in common use. According to the Canadian Payments Association, which regulates cheques, the big endian ISO 8601 YYYYMMDD is preferred, but MMDDYYYY or DDMMYYYY may be used, and cheques must include date indicators showing which format is being used.[2]

If using only two digits, not only can the month and day be confused with each other, but also the year. In Canada 07/04/01 could represent the 4th of July 2001, 1 April 2007, or several other dates.[3]

The federal government tends to use the big endian format, but some federal forms, such as a commercial cargo manifest, offer a blank line with no guidance.[4] Passport applications[5] and tax returns[6] use YYYY-MM-DD. English language newspapers use MDY (MMM[M] D, YYYY).[7] In Quebec and New Brunswick the variation of DDMMYYYY is used when written in French.

Government of Canada regulations for best before dates on foods mandate YYMMDD, MMDD, and DDMMYY.[8] The month is shown using the following bilingual codes.[9]

JA January
FE February
MR March
AL April
MA May
JN June
JL July
AU August
SE September
OC October
NO November
DE December

References

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