Compiled by more then 5,000 scholars and specialists, the publication is a non-partisan, non-political initiative by a not-for-profit organization without political or governmental ties.

[5][6] The encyclopedia website consists of more than 25,000 entries and over 60,000 multimedia items including images, maps, charts, games, assessments, and videos.

Burpee compiled the Index and Dictionary of Canadian History as a companion to the Makers of Canada series; Doughty and Adam Shortt edited the 23-volume Canada and Its Provinces (1913–17); Norah Story's The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature was published in 1967; the comprehensive Encyclopedia of Music in Canada was published in 1981 and revised in 1992; and a new Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, edited by William Toye, was published in 1983.

On 15 November 1979, the Alberta Legislature announced that the provincial government would underwrite the development costs of the encyclopedia with CA$3.4 million and would donate a further $600,000 towards the delivery of a free copy to every school and library in Canada.

The concern of a French-language edition was put aside with a guarantee by Hurtig that the rights would be donated free to a publisher in Quebec.

They made index cards for every fact in the encyclopedia, signed off by the researcher, utilized three sources, and had every article read by three outside readers.

[10] Two years later, Alain Stanké of Montreal published the first French edition of the encyclopedia, Encyclopédie canadienne, in three volumes.

[8] Encoded in a markup language precursor of HTML, this edition would be the first encyclopedia in the world to use a computer to help compile, typeset, design, and print it.

[12][13][14] In September 1990, Hurtig published The Junior Encyclopedia of Canada (ISBN 0-88830-334-3), illustrated with over 3000 photos, drawings, and maps.

[3] This five-volume encyclopedia was funded by the federal Department of Communications and a grant from the CRB Foundation of Montreal.

Its partners include the Canadian Children's Book Centre, Musée des grands Québécois, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and Maclean's.