Click Before You Dig: how to request a utility locate in Canada

By About Pipelines editors · November 4, 2026

Every year, contractors, farmers and homeowners across Canada hit buried pipelines and utility lines because they started digging before anyone marked what was underground. Most of these strikes are avoidable. One free request, made a few days before the shovel goes in, gets the lines marked on the ground in front of you.

This guide explains how the Click Before You Dig system works, what to expect after you submit a request, and the extra rules that apply near transmission pipelines.

What Click Before You Dig is

ClickBeforeYouDig.com is a national portal run by the Canadian Notification Centres Committee in cooperation with the Canadian Common Ground Alliance. It does not mark lines itself. It passes your request to the regional one-call (notification) centre for the province or territory where you plan to dig. That centre then notifies every member utility with buried lines near your site: natural gas, oil and liquids pipelines, electricity, telecommunications, water and sewer.

Each utility either sends a locator to mark its lines or tells you it has nothing in the area. The service is free for the person requesting it.

Who to contact in each province

You can start on ClickBeforeYouDig.com from anywhere in Canada, or go straight to the regional centre. Enbridge's public safe-digging page lists these centres:

Coverage and rules are not identical everywhere. In Ontario, a locate request through Ontario Dig Authority, which until recently operated as Ontario One Call, is required by law before you dig, and it asks for at least five business days' notice. In other provinces the legal requirement depends on what is buried and who regulates it, but every pipeline operator and safety regulator in the country asks you to make the request regardless.

How the request works, step by step

1. Plan the job and the dates. Know exactly where you will dig, how deep, and with what equipment. A fence line, a deck footing, tree planting, drain tile and fence posts all count.
2. Submit the request at least three full working days ahead. Enbridge and the one-call centres ask for a minimum of three working days so every utility has time to respond; Ontario Dig Authority asks for five business days. Weekends and statutory holidays do not count.
3. Describe the dig area clearly. Give the civic address, the part of the property and the size of the area. Some centres let you draw the area on a map. In the field, the industry practice is to outline the proposed excavation in white paint or flags.
4. Wait for every utility to clear or mark. You will receive a ticket number and, usually, a list of the utilities notified. Do not start until each one has marked its lines or confirmed it has nothing there.
5. Read the marks before you start. Locators use coloured paint, flags or stakes. Yellow is used for gas, oil and other petroleum lines. Our guide to pipeline markers and locate colours explains the full colour code.
6. Keep the paperwork on site. Locate sheets often include sketches, offsets and instructions. Keep them with the crew and respect any expiry date on the ticket.

The extra rules near a pipeline

Transmission pipelines that cross provincial or national borders are regulated by the Canada Energy Regulator (CER), and its damage prevention rules go further than a simple locate.

• The prescribed area. The CER defines a strip 30 metres on each side of the pipe's centreline. Where several pipelines share a corridor, the 30 metres is measured from the outermost pipes.
• Ground disturbance. Digging 30 cm (12 in) or deeper inside the prescribed area needs a locate and written consent from the pipeline company. Cultivation 45 cm or deeper needs consent too.
• On the right-of-way itself. Building anything, storing material (even a parked vehicle or a woodpile), or driving vehicles or mobile equipment across the pipeline off a roadway all require the company's consent.
• Abandoned pipelines. Make a locate request at least three working days before digging, contact the pipeline company first, and note that touching, altering or removing an abandoned federally regulated pipeline needs CER authorization.

Provincially regulated pipelines have their own rules, set by bodies such as the Alberta Energy Regulator or the BC Energy Regulator, but the logic is the same: locate first, get consent near the pipe, and dig with care. The CER's page on damage prevention is the authoritative source for federally regulated lines.

Digging safely once the lines are marked

A locate mark shows the approximate horizontal position of a line, not its depth, and it is not a guarantee of exactly where the pipe lies. The pipeline company or utility will tell you what tolerance zone applies and whether hand digging or hydrovac excavation is required near the mark. A common way to remember the sequence is the CARE acronym used in Enbridge's public material:

• Call or click before you dig
• Allow the required time for marking
• Respect and protect the marks
• Excavate carefully

Never assume a line's depth. Grading, erosion and landscaping change the amount of cover over a pipe after it is installed, and gas service lines to houses are often shallow. Our article on how deep gas lines are buried covers this in more detail.

If something goes wrong

If you strike or even scrape a pipeline, stop immediately. Shut off equipment if it is safe to do so, leave it where it is, and move people away and upwind. If you hear hissing, smell gas or petroleum, or see product escaping, call 911 from a safe distance, then call the pipeline company using the emergency number on the nearest marker. Report minor contact as well: a dent or a scratch in the coating can become a corrosion point years later.

For signs of a leak and what to do, see What should I do if I see a pipeline leak? and our guide to what natural gas smells like.

Sources

• Canada Energy Regulator, Damage prevention
• Click Before You Dig, national locate request portal
• Enbridge, Click/Call Before You Dig (Canada)
• Ontario Dig Authority, locate requests in Ontario