Canada Travel Advisory MCP Server

An MCP server for Government of Canada travel advisories, backed by the Global Affairs Canada open data index of 230 destinations.

Lightweight by design: a single index.js, one dependency (@modelcontextprotocol/sdk), no build step, no TypeScript compile, no HTTP library.

Install

npm install

Requires Node.js 18+ (uses the built-in fetch).

Setup

No API key is needed — the dataset is public and unauthenticated. All clients below run the same stdio command: node <path-to>/index.js.

Substitute your own absolute path if the project lives elsewhere.

Claude Code

claude mcp add canada-travel-advisory -- node E:/Claude/mcp-servers/canada-travel-advisory/index.js

Add --scope user to make it available across all your projects instead of just the current one.

Claude Desktop

In claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "canada-travel-advisory": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["E:/Claude/mcp-servers/canada-travel-advisory/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after saving.

Codex CLI

codex mcp add canada-travel-advisory -- node E:/Claude/mcp-servers/canada-travel-advisory/index.js

Or edit ~/.codex/config.toml directly (use .codex/config.toml in the project root to scope it to one trusted project):

[mcp_servers.canada-travel-advisory]
command = "node"
args = ["E:/Claude/mcp-servers/canada-travel-advisory/index.js"]

Verify with codex mcp list.

Cursor

Create .cursor/mcp.json in the project root, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json to enable it globally:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "canada-travel-advisory": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["E:/Claude/mcp-servers/canada-travel-advisory/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

The server then appears under Settings → MCP, where it must be toggled on.

Windows path note

The forward slashes above work fine on Windows. If you prefer backslashes in the JSON configs, escape them: "E:\\Claude\\mcp-servers\\canada-travel-advisory\\index.js".

Tools

Tool	Purpose
get_travel_advisory	Advisory for one destination. Accepts a name (English or French), ISO code (JP), or slug (costa-rica). Ambiguous input returns candidates.
list_travel_advisories	Filter and browse all destinations by risk_level, min_risk_level, has_regional_advisory; sort by name / risk / updated; paged via limit + offset.
get_recent_updates	Advisories changed most recently, newest first. Filter by days and by update_type.
search_countries	Partial-match search across names, ISO codes, and slugs.
compare_advisories	Compare several destinations at once, ranked highest risk first.
get_advisory_statistics	Dataset overview: counts per risk level, regional-advisory count, change-type breakdown, freshness.

All tools accept language ("en" default, or "fr"), which switches names, advisory text, and the destination link between travel.gc.ca and voyage.gc.ca.

Risk levels

Level	Meaning
0	Exercise normal security precautions
1	Exercise a high degree of caution
2	Avoid non-essential travel
3	Avoid all travel

min_risk_level: 2 gives every destination Canada advises against travelling to. Filters also accept the label text (e.g. risk_level: "avoid all travel").

Example questions this answers

• "What's the travel advisory for Peru?"
• "Which countries should I avoid all travel to right now?"
• "What advisories changed in the last week?"
• "Compare Japan, Mali, and France for a trip."
• "How many destinations have regional advisories?"

Data source and behaviour notes

Source: https://data.international.gc.ca/travel-voyage/index-alpha-eng.json

• One endpoint is fetched, not two. The published index-updated.json is byte-identical to index-alpha-eng.json (verified: same MD5, same alphabetical key order) and is not actually sorted by recency. get_recent_updates therefore sorts on date-published.timestamp locally, which is reliable regardless of what order the upstream file happens to be in.
• One fetch serves both languages. Despite the -eng suffix, every record embeds both eng and fra blocks; the -fra file differs only in key order.
• Caching: responses are cached in memory for 60 minutes (the dataset regenerates about hourly), refreshed with conditional If-None-Match / If-Modified-Since requests. If a refresh fails, the last good data is served with stale: true rather than erroring.
• Summary data only. The dataset carries risk level, advisory text, update date and change summary. Full advisory detail (safety and security, entry requirements, health, regional breakdowns) exists only as HTML, so every result includes the destination url to read it.

Every response also carries data_generated (upstream generation time) and a source attribution line, so answers can be dated.

Licence

MIT. Advisory data © Government of Canada, used under the Open Government Licence – Canada.