ontario.ca

Readiness by lane

Green: ontario.ca. Thin bar: Government Services peer median.

Priority fixes for ontario.ca

Ordered by impact and by how common each practice is among peers.

1. Priority 1 · Accelerate

   No render-blocking scripts in <head>

   Observed: The homepage <head> loaded 3 external scripts without async or defer.

   Why it matters: A plain <script src> in the head stops the browser from showing anything until that file has downloaded and run.

   What to do: Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.

   39% of Government Services peers do this. Limit: Based on the homepage HTML delivered to an automated client; scripts that run later were not executed.

   Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page

2. Priority 2 · Accelerate

   Modern image formats in use

   Observed: The homepage had 3 images and none used WebP or AVIF.

   What to do: Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG or PNG fallback, either through an image CDN or by generating both formats at build time.

   15% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG: Choose the Right Image Format

3. Priority 3 · Harden

   CAA records limit who can issue certificates

   Observed: No CAA record was found for ontario.ca, so any public certificate authority may issue for it.

   What to do: Publish CAA records naming every CA you actually use, including the CAs your CDN uses for managed certificates. Add an iodef contact if you want reports.

   17% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

4. Priority 4 · Harden

   Certificate lifetime of 100 days or less

   Observed: The certificate from DigiCert Inc had a 198-day validity period, longer than the 100-day maximum that applies from March 2027.

   What to do: Move to automated issuance and renewal now, while you still have time to test it.

   34% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

What ontario.ca already does well

Practices fewer than half of Government Services peers use.

• Static files cached for 30 days or moreLong-lived caching on static files.30% of peers
• Social preview image setog:image present.36% of peers
• Content Security Policy presentContent-Security-Policy present.41% of peers

What we saw

Homepage checked

https://www.ontario.ca/

Homepage response

HTTP 200

TLS

TLSv1.3, HTTP/2

Certificate

DigiCert, 198-day validity, expiring 2027-04-07

CDN or edge

Amazon CloudFront

Platform or framework

Drupal

DNS operators

1 self-run or other nameserver domain

HSTS

max-age 365 days, includeSubDomains

DMARC policy

p=reject

Homepage HTML

87 KB, gzip

Images on homepage

3 (svg 2, png 1)

Limits: homepage only, one location, one moment. Header checks reflect the homepage response; other pages may differ.

Stack and providers

Seen in the homepage response, certificate and DNS. Provider pages compare how their customers configure the same checks.

All 31 checks

Select a gap for the method and fix. How each check works

Compare with other Government Services sites

• diia.gov.ua72
• migrationsverket.se73
• mom.gov.sg73
• oesterreich.gv.at73
• pishkhan24.com73

Government Services readiness benchmark