Governance is the unglamorous work that keeps a corporation real: the annual return that keeps
it on the registry, the minute book that proves decisions actually happened, the shareholder
agreement that decides what happens when owners disagree, and the director duties that sit
underneath all of it. It is also where small corporations fail silently, because nothing breaks
on the day a filing is missed; the consequences arrive later, at the worst time.
The recurring obligations
The annual return and the tax return are different filings to different bodies; filing one does
not satisfy the other.
Start with these answers
Mistakes that surface years later
- Confusing the annual return with the tax return. Filing taxes on time while the registry
filing lapses is the classic route to accidental dissolution.
- An empty minute book. Dividends, share issuances, and director changes with no paper
trail become everyone’s problem in a sale, audit, or dispute.
- No shareholder agreement while relationships are good. The document exists precisely for
when they stop being good, and it can no longer be negotiated calmly then.
Official starting points
Guide last updated August 8, 2026.
The legal difference between a registered trademark, a corporate name, and a trade name, and which one actually stops a copycat from using your name.
The filing steps, fees, and post-incorporation deadlines for setting up an Ontario corporation, plus the requirement most founders miss.
What actually happens when a director is removed in Alberta: who votes, filing deadlines, and why the registry fee isn't fixed.
The specific wage, tax, and veil-piercing triggers that expose directors personally, and why Alberta shareholders can face an entirely different rule.
The OBCA steps to remove an Ontario director, why articles can't raise the vote threshold, and the filing deadline that follows.
What a unanimous shareholder agreement actually changes about who runs a corporation, and where Ontario and Alberta rules diverge from the federal one.
Which statutory remedies protect a minority shareholder in Ontario, Alberta, and federally, and the conditions courts attach before granting them.
A side-by-side look at how federal, Ontario, and Alberta corporations report director and shareholder changes, and where the process actually differs.
What Alberta's Business Corporations Act actually demands of a registered office address, and the circumstances that rule a home out.
What an annual return covers, why it isn't your tax filing, and the filing deadlines and dissolution risks in Canada's three jurisdictions.
What Ontario's Business Corporations Act requires of a registered office, where a home address won't work, and what to weigh first.
Name or number, the Alberta NUANS report, preparing articles of incorporation, appointing directors, and what arrives at the end.
How you get a numbered company, why founders choose one over a word name, and how to use a trade name alongside it after incorporation.
Why Alberta's annual return carries two separate charges, when it is due, what happens if you miss the filing, and the tax return that remains separate.
The one mandatory federal filing, the ISC register you must also keep, what a missed return triggers, and where the cost grows.
Satisfying creditors, dealing with real property before you file, shareholder authorization, and filing Articles of Dissolution in Ontario.
The two CBCA dissolution routes, which one applies to you, the resolution each needs, and how remaining property and liabilities are handled.
The resolutions a CBCA change actually requires, how a director can resign instead, and the Corporations Canada reporting deadline.
Which Ontario track applies to you, the steps for a Partnerships Act dissolution versus a corporate one, and what neither route covers.
Continuance versus extra-provincial registration, the shareholder and home-jurisdiction authorizations required, and filing into the destination province.
What the registry status means, how the notice gets missed, and whether a dissolved federal, Ontario, or Alberta corporation can still be revived.
Which law governs your dissolution, how the partnership and corporation routes differ across the three jurisdictions, and closing CRA accounts after.
Which law actually governs a partnership split, the CBCA corporate dissolution steps, winding up over time, and what happens after.
What 'distinctive' actually screens out, how confusion review differs from trademark risk, and when reserving a federal name is worth it.
The escalation step by step, why losing your Certificate of Compliance bites first, what dissolution changes, and how revival works.
What the Ontario annual return requires, the path from a missed filing to dissolution, what dissolution changes, and how revival works.
The organizational meeting, issuing shares and recording resolutions, calling the first shareholders' meeting, and where you must register provincially.
Federal, Ontario, and Alberta side by side, what changes once you operate in more than one province, and how naming rules differ.
What the articles must include, standard versus custom provisions, Alberta's unlimited liability option, and the filing fees at a glance.
What a share structure sets out, when a single class of common shares is enough, what adding classes requires, and Alberta's filing difference.
The specific triggers that make legal help unavoidable in a business sale: selling substantially all assets, real property, foreign buyers, and deal size.
Which records the law requires, how long to keep accounting records, where they must be held, and what happens if you don't.
Where the corporate shield stops: director liability for unpaid wages, the statutory exceptions, and Alberta's unlimited liability corporation.
What each Alberta name type actually is, when the NUANS step is skipped, and the objection risk a chosen name carries in practice.
What actually triggers extra-provincial registration, how Ontario and Alberta each handle it, and the reciprocal exception that skips the paperwork.
What you are actually buying, the corporate approval a sale needs, what happens to employees under Ontario rules, and how closing works.
What adding a spouse as shareholder changes under TOSI, what it does to governance, and the criteria for deciding either way.
How control is actually measured, group structures beyond a single parent and subsidiary, and when a business genuinely sets one up.
What Alberta's default corporate rules leave unaddressed, when you clearly need an agreement, when you can skip it, and what must be unanimous.