A civil engineer scoping a new site before committing to a bid is doing the same research every time: what's the zoning, what services already run to the property, is there a flood risk, what permits apply, and how long will they take. That research is unbilled time, and it's the same public data sitting in different municipal, provincial and federal systems every time someone looks it up by hand. Civil Proposal exists to do that lookup once, from an address, and hand back a sourced answer instead of a guess.
We recently audited our own data coverage against the codebase and Statistics Canada's 2021 census, municipality by municipality, so the number we're using to describe coverage is one we can actually stand behind.
The headline number
Civil Proposal provides national baseline intelligence for every Canadian address, and municipal site-level data covering 69% of Canadians, across 230 municipalities and 34 datasets.
That's measured by matching every municipality in our catalogue to its 2021 census population, not by counting municipalities on a list. A raw count of municipalities sounds impressive regardless of whether those are Canada's biggest cities or its smallest towns. Weighting by population is the honest version of that number.
What every address gets, no matter where it is
Every site in Canada, regardless of municipality, returns a federal baseline built from national datasets: location, elevation, slope and LiDAR data; soil order and texture; surficial geology; seismic hazard under the 2020 National Building Code; climate normals and rainfall intensity-duration-frequency data; watercourse and floodplain minimums; wetland and species-at-risk screening; protected areas; federally tracked contaminated sites; treaty and Aboriginal land screening; the road network; and a directory of utility providers.
Where the depth goes further
Beyond that baseline, 34 datasets in total feed into Civil Proposal, and the deeper, site-specific layers, zoning, official plans, municipal servicing mains, municipal flood maps, heritage registers, are wired for a growing catalogue of municipalities, concentrated in Ontario, BC, Quebec and Alberta. A site inside one of those catalogued municipalities gets zoning pulled directly from that municipality's own bylaw data; a site outside it falls back to the provincial or federal baseline and the report says so explicitly, rather than presenting a guess with the same confidence as a verified figure.
One honest caveat: our municipal-only flood figure understates real flood coverage, because several major cities not yet in our municipal flood layer, including Edmonton, Winnipeg and Montréal, are still covered by provincial flood mapping in the background. The population number for flood coverage specifically is the most conservative of the figures we're reporting.
What this actually changes for an engineer's week
The point of the coverage isn't the number itself, it's what it replaces: a civil firm often has a day or two to price a bid, and researching permits, servicing, stormwater and site constraints by hand can cost hours of unbilled time per pursuit. Civil Proposal turns that into a report available in a fraction of the time, with every figure flagged as Sourced, a Published standard, Confirm with the authority, or Source not available, so the engineer reviewing it knows exactly which parts are backed by a record and which still need a phone call before the bid goes out. From there, a firm develops scope and fee inside the tool and exports a structured proposal draft, with an audit trail carrying every figure's source and retrieval date.
The research doesn't disappear. It gets sourced, dated, and handed over already organized, instead of redone by hand on every single pursuit.
How this compares to what else is out there
Other Canadian products cover parts of this well. LandLogic covers Ontario planning and zoning in depth; ERIS is the established standard for environmental record searches used in Phase I assessments across Canada; Zoneomics covers zoning only, across thousands of municipalities. Each does one slice well. We built Civil Proposal around the slice those tools don't cover: the engineering-specific data a civil bid actually needs, sourced and dated, nationally.
FAQ
How much of Canada does Civil Proposal actually cover?
Every Canadian address gets a national baseline report. At the municipal level, zoning, servicing, and other site-specific data, Civil Proposal's catalogue reaches municipalities home to 69% of Canadians, across 230 municipalities.
What happens for a site outside the detailed municipal catalogue?
The report falls back to the relevant provincial or federal baseline and flags the site-specific figures as "Confirm with the authority" rather than presenting an estimate as a verified answer.
How much research time does Civil Proposal save on a typical bid?
It varies by site, but research that can take a firm hours per pursuit comes back from a site address as an organized, sourced report in a fraction of the time.
Does Civil Proposal cover flood risk fully?
It covers federal and available municipal flood mapping directly. The municipal-only figure we report understates true flood coverage, since several major cities are covered by provincial flood mapping that isn't yet reflected in that specific number.
Try it
If you want to see what a scoping report looks like for a real site, Civil Proposal has a free plan. We're based in Kelowna and Civil Proposal works with civil engineers, land developers and municipal planners across Canada.