Oliu™ is the open Canadian credential network — built on W3C standards, operational today, and opening to the first cohort of external issuers who will help shape the Canadian Credential Trust Authority that governs it.
Oliu™ changes what a credential can do, without changing what your organization decides. Your credentialing decisions stay yours. What changes is how those decisions travel, how quickly they’re confirmed, and how difficult they are to counterfeit.
A safety ticket issued in Alberta is recognized in Ontario. A professional licence issued in one province is verifiable in another. No bilateral agreements, no manual re-verification, no jurisdiction-specific workarounds.
An employer, a regulator, or a site supervisor confirms a credential’s authenticity instantly — on oliu.ca, or within partner systems that have integrated verification. No calls back to your office, no manual lookups, no waiting.
Every credential is cryptographically signed at the moment of issuance. Any alteration breaks the signature. Forgery, in practice, requires compromising your organization’s signing key — a different class of problem than photocopying a certificate.
Oliu™ runs the wallet, the registry, and the verification layer. You focus on credentialing decisions. The network does the rest.
Several forces are converging that make this the moment to act rather than the moment to wait.
W3C Verifiable Credentials has reached production maturity. The specification is stable, implementations are in market, and the governments and credentialing bodies aligning to it are no longer experimental adopters — they’re establishing patterns that the rest of the sector will inherit. Early movers shape those patterns; later movers inherit them.
Federal and provincial governments are aligning their digital credential strategies around the same open standards Oliu™ is built on. DIACC’s Pan-Canadian Trust Framework and DGSI guidance are both active. The alignment window is now.
The federal government’s One Canadian Economy Act — designed to reduce interprovincial labour-mobility barriers — requires two pieces of infrastructure that don’t yet exist at national scale. One is pan-Canadian training standards, which industry associations, regulators, and governments are developing sector by sector. The other is a national trusted credential infrastructure — the system that actually carries those standards between provinces, employers, and verifiers. Pan-Canadian training standards without trusted credential infrastructure still leaves a worker re-qualifying when they move. Trusted credential infrastructure without training standards still leaves a verifier unsure what a credential attests to. The two are complementary pieces of the same question, and solving one without the other doesn’t solve the problem.
The cost of not moving is real, and growing. Workers re-training when they cross provincial lines. Employers paying for re-verification of credentials that should already be trusted. Regulators carrying administrative load that compounds with every jurisdiction that has to be manually engaged. When both pieces — training standards and credential infrastructure — are in place, these costs drop for every party. Training and retraining dollars go further. Verification burden drops across the economy. Workforces move.
For credentialing authorities considering digital issuance, there is an additional reason this moment matters — the network is in the phase where the first cohort of external issuers will help form the Canadian Credential Trust Authority that governs it.
There are real reasons to choose Oliu™ as the network your credentials live on — reasons that hold up to serious evaluation.
Built on the W3C Verifiable Credentials standard. Aligned with DIACC’s Pan-Canadian Trust Framework and DGSI. No proprietary credential format. Credentials remain interoperable with any compliant system — today, and as the standards evolve.
The platform is live. The wallet is in market. Credential issuance, registration, and verification are running on the network now. This is not a future roadmap.
The credentials you issue on Oliu™ aren’t locked to Oliu™. They’re W3C-standard, held in the holder’s device, readable by any compliant wallet or verifier. If your organization or Oliu™ changes course, the credentials your holders have earned remain verifiable. The network is open by construction, not by promise.
The platform is built and hosted 100% in Canada. DIACC PCTF certified. Canadian jurisdiction, Canadian standards alignment, Canadian data residency. One simple answer, consistently.
At a high level, three things happen. Each is covered in more depth elsewhere on the site.
Your organization integrates with Oliu™ through a direct API, a partner system you already use, or another supported integration path. Technical details on the Integration & APIs page.
See integration optionsWhen your learners earn qualifications, credentials are signed by your organization, registered on the network, and delivered to the holder’s wallet. Operational detail on the How Issuance Works page.
See the issuance flowAny authorized verifier can confirm a credential’s authenticity in seconds — on oliu.ca, or within partner systems that have integrated verification. Verification doesn’t require your organization to do anything after issuance.
For the first cohort of external issuers to join Oliu™, there is an additional opportunity: a formative role in shaping the governance, standards, and direction of the network itself.
The first cohort of external credentialing authorities to issue credentials through the Oliu™ network. Between five and eight members, drawn from governments, regulators, professional bodies, industry associations, and commercial training providers. The opportunity is defined and time-bounded — once the cohort is complete, the founding board of the Canadian Credential Trust Authority will be formed from its members.
A seat in the conversations that shape Oliu™’s accreditation criteria, credential standards, network-level policy, and strategic priorities. The founding board of the Canadian Credential Trust Authority will be drawn from the cohort, with voting authority over the Authority’s governance once it is formed. Founding members help co-author the Authority’s charter.
Credentialing authorities with meaningful reach in their sector, credentials that matter to Canadian workers and employers, and the appetite to help build infrastructure rather than only use it. Organizations ready to commit to issuing on Oliu™ and participating in the governance work that comes with the founding-cohort role.
Founding cohort membership is by invitation and expression of interest. If your organization would like to be considered, get in touch. Founding cohort inquiries receive an acknowledgment within one business day, with a substantive response within one week.
Credential infrastructure only works if the trust behind it is real. Oliu™ is designed around structural separation between the operator (Oliu™ Inc., the jointly-owned Canadian federally incorporated operator) and the governance entity (the Canadian Credential Trust Authority, the independent not-for-profit being established as the network opens).
The operator runs the network under a long-term agreement with the Authority. The Authority — not the operator — holds termination rights, conducts scheduled performance reviews, and decides whether the operator continues in its role. The trust registry itself is owned by the Authority, so credentials remain verifiable independent of any change in operator.
The posture is public, publishable, and meant to be held to.
Read about Trust & GovernanceAdopting credentialing infrastructure is a serious decision. Oliu™ does not expect a credentialing authority to make it on a single page. If your organization is exploring how to issue digital credentials — or evaluating whether Oliu™ might be the right network — a conversation is the right next step.