Public Services and Procurement Canada
Symbol of the Government of Canada

Institutional Links

 

Important notice

The Canadian Style has been archived and won’t be updated before it is permanently deleted.

For the most up-to-date content, please consult Writing Tips Plus, which combines content from Writing Tips and The Canadian Style. And don’t forget to update your bookmarks!

Search Canada.ca

7.20 Dates, geographical names and addresses

Use a comma to separate the day of the week from the date and the place from the date:

  • Friday, February 13 but Friday the thirteenth
  • Hull, February 13

If the date is written in the order day-month-year, no commas are required before, after or between the components of the date:

  • The meeting of 10 January 1996 did little to allay tensions.

If, however, the order given is month-day-year, the day and year are separated by a comma, and the year should normally be followed by a comma within the body of a sentence or sentence equivalent:

  • February 20, 1995, marked the beginning of a new era.
  • On April 16, 1985, certain additional provisions of the Charter took effect.

If you are stating only the month and the year, do not insert a comma:

  • Treasury Board approved the submission in February 1995.

Similarly, a comma separates a place name from the name of a province or the abbreviation for that province, and the province’s name or abbreviation is normally followed by a comma within the body of a sentence or sentence equivalent:

  • Swift Current, Saskatchewan, has applied to host the event.
  • We arrived at Corner Brook, N.L., the following day.

Use commas to separate address components, as illustrated:

  • Our address is 340 Laurier Ave. West, Ottawa, Ontario  K1A 0P8, and our telephone number is 613-999-9900.

Note that the postal code is followed, but not preceded, by a comma when the address forms part of a sentence, and that two spaces separate the provincial name from the postal code.