# Is Ontario Agent-Ready?

*Citizen Answer Engine Optimization: a field-test report card.*
Prepared by Space & Story. Companion field test to Will Falk's CSA paper *A Complement, Not a Substitute*.

> **Thesis.** Citizens now ask AI first, and the government doesn't get to opt out of being the answer. It only gets to choose whether it's the *source*. Will Falk argued that every public institution must make its information machine-retrievable. This report is the field test of whether Ontario has. It hasn't.

## Headline
- **0 of 10** Ontario sites cleared Level 1 of 5.
- **6** scored Level 0 ("Not Ready").
- **0 of 8** agent capabilities present on any site, including Canada.ca.
- **21** signals scanned across 5 categories.
- **52%** of Canadians used AI for health information; only 27% trust it (CMA, 2026).

## The readiness ladder (0–5)
- **Level 0: Not Ready.** Missing even a basic crawlable presence.
- **Level 1: Basic Web Presence.** robots.txt + sitemap. A classic search crawler can find it.
- **Level 2: Bot-Aware.** AI-bot rules + Content Signals. Declares how AI may use its content.
- **Level 3: Agent-Readable.** Markdown content negotiation. An agent retrieves clean content to ground answers in (the RAG layer).
- **Level 4: Agent-Integrated.** API Catalog, MCP Server Card, Agent Skills, WebMCP. An agent can discover and call your tools.
- **Level 5: Agent-Native.** Auth.md, A2A Agent Card, OAuth metadata. Agents can securely register, authenticate, and transact.

## The scorecard
| Site | Level | Discoverability | Content | Bot control | Capabilities (MCP/Skills/API/Auth) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ontario Health (ontariohealth.ca) | 0 · Not Ready | 0/4 | 0/1 | 0/2 | 0/8 |
| Health811 (health811.ontario.ca) | 0 · Not Ready | 0/4 | 0/1 | 0/2 | 0/8 |
| Tribunals Ontario (tribunalsontario.ca) | 0 · Not Ready | 1/4 | 0/1 | 0/2 | 0/8 |
| OnLand (land registry) (onland.ca) | 0 · Not Ready | 0/4 | 0/1 | 0/2 | 0/8 |
| Ontario Curriculum (dcp.edu.gov.on.ca) | 0 · Not Ready | 0/4 | 0/1 | 0/2 | 0/8 |
| Ontario Open Data (data.ontario.ca) | 0 · Not Ready | 1/4 | 0/1 | 1/2 | 0/8 |
| Public Health Ontario (publichealthontario.ca) | 1 · Basic Web Presence | 2/4 | 0/1 | 1/2 | 0/8 |
| University Health Network (uhn.ca) | 1 · Basic Web Presence | 2/4 | 0/1 | 1/2 | 0/8 |
| SickKids (sickkids.ca) | 1 · Basic Web Presence | 2/4 | 0/1 | 1/2 | 0/8 |
| Ontario.ca (main portal) (ontario.ca) | 1 · Basic Web Presence | 2/4 | 0/1 | 1/2 | 0/8 |
| Canada.ca (federal benchmark) (canada.ca) | 1 · Basic Web Presence | 2/4 | 0/1 | 1/2 | 0/8 |

**What it says out loud.** The capability layer is empty (0/8) on every site. Nothing is even "Agent-Readable" (Content 0/1 across the board). Ontario Health and Health811 are at absolute zero. The education knowledge base scores zero: rich content, shut door.

## This report leads by example
Rather than scold from a Level 0 page, this report is built to the standard it measures. It serves this Markdown on `Accept: text/markdown`, publishes an MCP server at `https://projects.xyspace.dev/ontario-agent-ready/mcp`, and ships the `.well-known` capability files, Content Signals, and structured data. Scan it yourself.

## Method
Cloudflare's isitagentready.com API, full scan across all 21 signals in 5 categories, homepage-level, 2026-07-21. Levels 0–5 and their requirements are the tool's own, reconstructed from its published gating logic. Web Bot Auth, DNS-AID and the commerce protocols are tracked but do not gate a level.

Full report: https://projects.xyspace.dev/ontario-agent-ready/