Progress & plans: 2025 highlights for CDS platform products

This article was previously published on CDS’s LinkedIn in January 2026. Check out the original post.

Thanks to all the collaboration efforts of GC teams, CDS products have been growing their ability to help improve digital service delivery for Canada. The goal of offering these products is to empower GC teams to focus on what they do best, serving Canada.

Our Platform products (GC Design System, GC Forms, and GC Notify) are being used across GC departments to create better service experiences and enable new digital possibilities. We continuously engage with our users to learn how we can improve the products for greater impact.

Read this article to learn more about the progress and impacts GC Design System, GC Forms, and GC Notify have had in 2025, and how you can get updates on our product work planned for this year!

GC Notify: Send automated email and text notifications

How the notification system can help teams deliver digital services:

Send email and text messages to the public at each step in their government process.
Use cases that may be relevant to your work: appointment scheduling and reminders, application receipts, status updates and decisions, and password resets and multifactor authentication (MFA).

“We’re huge fans and users of GC Notify at the IT Service Management Centre… A month ago, I sent around 65,000 emails for our services through GC Notify. We use it to send our weekly entry and exit surveys, account creation credentials, and the IT user survey. We’ve also used it for time-sensitive initiatives like summer surveys.”
– Amber Lawson, Plans Officer at the IT Service Management Centre, Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).
From blog: Digital initiatives at Cadets: Using GC Notify & GC Forms to improve user experiences.

Scaling adoption across the GC:

More than 895 programs and services are using GC Notify.
Over 277 million notifications sent so far.

New features released last year to improve usability:

Introducing our sample template library: Templates for an appointment reminder, two-step verification code, and a pre-formatted bilingual message.
Easily use our OpenAPI Specification for live services: Refer to our documentation to identify variable types (such as strings and booleans), and test directly within a browser interface.
Generate reports with one button in GC Notify: You can now navigate away and we will email you once the report is ready to be downloaded.
Supporting languages read right to left: Are you sending out an email notification in a right-to-left oriented language like Arabic, Hebrew or Farsi? You can now specify the direction of text for an entire email, or parts of an email.
Higher annual limits (fiscal year) for both email and text messages: Doubled for emails (now 20 million), and quadrupled for texts (now 100,000).

What’s next for GC Notify:

Planned work: Run a discovery on interoperability needs, explore exposing more features using API, and explore rich text formatting options.
Check out the GC Notify roadmap and sign up for their mailing list for product updates.

GC Forms: Create accessible online forms

How the form builder can help teams deliver digital services:

Make it easier for people to submit information to your service by building simple, accessible, online forms (no coding required).
Use cases that may be relevant to your work: Applying for a benefit, giving feedback, registering with a program, submitting a request, and sending a report.

“Because of the sensitive nature of the information included in our [Tariff] consultation, as well as the sensitive nature of the responses we intended on receiving, we needed a secure Protected B platform… GC Forms saved us a lot of time and effort and allowed us to move into the development phase much quicker. This was one of our primary reasons for switching to GC Forms.”
– Justin Lane (Website Developer), Department of Finance Canada (FIN).
From blog: GC Forms testimonial: Speedy adoption at FIN.

Scaling adoption across the GC:

71 government departments are actively using GC Forms.
Over 1,870 forms were published in 2025. That’s a 145% increase from 2024!

New features released last year to improve usability:

Form fillers now have the ability to save their progress and receive a copy of their response (guidance); all without the need for a user profile or account.
You can now securely get form responses automatically via an Application Programming Interface (API) for Protected B medium availability, medium integrity security profile data (guidance): With help from developers, you might be able to connect what’s submitted to GC Forms to your department’s web application or back-office system.
- API users can try the first iteration of the new file attachment feature.

What’s next for GC Forms:

Coming soon: Attach files to forms without an API, better workflow support, and verified addresses.
On the radar: Add a long list of options, edit a live form, and team management.
For more details: Check out the GC Forms strategic roadmap. You can also sign up for their mailing list for product updates.

GC Design System: Design consistent web experiences

How the design system can help teams deliver digital services:

GC Design System is the source for public servants delivering Government of Canada websites and products. Build faster without compromising brand identity, accessibility, or bilingualism.

Use cases that may be relevant to your work: Whether you’re designing or building in code, get started using GC Design System.

Design: Use GC Design System library in Figma to create consistent and accessible front-end experiences for GC products and services. Our components are designed for both static sites and dynamic applications.
Develop: Learn how to start prototyping and developing accessible GC experiences in code. GC Design System provides reusable and customizable web components. They’re tech-agnostic and can be used in any web project, regardless of the underlying framework (such as React, Vue, and Angular).

“From the design point of view, GC Design System has been very helpful. For over a year, I’ve been working on a product team that has 3 external-facing products. There are more products planned to follow, both internal and external, and I expect to continue using the design system across all of them… Using GC Design System has helped us create a cohesive look across all three of those pilot products.”
– Adele Strub (UX Designer), Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).
From blog: Ripple effect (part 1/3): Co-creating success at DFO and CDS.

Scaling awareness and adoption across the GC:

At least 27 government departments are using the design system to build planned services and/or improve live ones.
Over 1,190 public servants attended demo and forum events to learn about the design system and ask questions/give feedback.

New features released last year to improve usability:

Aligned the mandatory elements with Canada.ca: Departments can be confident that they’re meeting requirements when using GC Design System.
Released the basic page template: Depending on how complex your page is, using the basic page template can cut development time by more than half. This frees you up to focus on the user journey and the specific functionality of your service.
Added new and updated components: Such as a Stepper (progress tracker for a multi-step process), Icon (custom-built set of icons for the GC), and Notice (a short, prominent message that’s part of the page content).
Improved designer and developer onboarding by creating the Start to Use page: includes developer guidance for installation and designer guidance for use in Figma.
Launched CSS Shortcuts: a set of CSS utility classes, built to match GC Design System styles and Canada.ca standards.

What’s next for the GC Design System:

GC Design System is reaching a stable state and will move out of alpha: A stable design system means that it’s safe to use in production, well-supported, and continuously improved. The goal is that GC teams recognize that the GC Design System is stable and is an official design system for the Government of Canada.
Research and release a data table component: We’re looking for contributions on user needs for data tables to organize and display large amounts of data in rows and columns. Send us examples of designs (screenshots, prototypes, links to live services), research findings, and code. Learn how you can get involved!
For more details: Check out the roadmap and sign up for the mailing list!

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Want to stay updated on our work this year? Subscribe to the CDS newsletter for GC digital content curations (disconnect from the VPN to view).

You may also be interested in reading more about our products in the blogs we’ve published with both the GC teams using and building them: