Consolidated Acts
Like the consolidated acts found on the e-Laws website, the acts found under the Consolidated Acts section of the Justice Laws website are the up-to-date or "current" official version of the statute, with all the amendments, revisions or changes incorporated into the text. Towards the top of the page, each consolidated act has the currency information, as well as the date of when the legislation was last amended.
Source Notes
Look to the bottom of each section of a piece of consolidated legislation for a list of source notes. These little bread crumbs cite to legislation that has affected the associated section in some way. For more information on how to use and interpret source notes, look to our blog post Legal Research Survival Guide, Part 4 – Following the Breadcrumbs: Source Notes and How to Use Them.
Previous Versions
Once on the webpage of the consolidated act being researched, look towards the top of the page for the link "Previous Versions". Much like the "Historical Versions" tab of the e-Laws website, the "Previous Versions" Justice Laws feature makes available the historical versions of legislation at each stage (reflective of amendments) of its life through time. The linked dates that can be found under the "Previous Versions" tab indicate the period of time for which the historical snapshot of the act is current. Generally, the Point-in-time data for statutes is available from January 1, 2003 onwards.
Consolidated Regulations
Like the consolidated acts found on the Justice Laws website, the regulations found under the Consolidated Regulations section of the website are the up-to-date or "current" official version of the regulation, with all the amendments, revisions or changes incorporated into the text. Towards the top of the page, each consolidated regulation has the currency information, as well as the date of when the regulation was last amended.
Source Notes
Look to the bottom of each section of a piece of consolidated legislation for a list of source notes. These little bread crumbs cite to legislation that has affected the associated section in some way.
Previous Versions
Once on the webpage of the consolidated regulation being researched, look towards the top of the page for the link "Previous Versions." This feature mirrors exactly that of the "previous versions" feature of the consolidated acts section of Justice Laws. This feature makes available the historical versions of the regulation at each stage (reflective of amendments) of its life through time. The linked dates that can be found under the "Previous Versions" tab indicate the period of time for which the historical snapshot of the regulation is current. Generally, the point-in-time data for statutes is available from March 22, 2006 onwards.
Annual Statutes
The Annual statutes section of Justice Laws gathers Public General Acts in the form in which they were originally enacted by Parliament in a given calendar year. They include new acts as well as acts and provisions that amend existing acts. Justice Laws has annual statutes going back until 2001.
Tables
Table of Public Statutes and Responsible Ministers
The Table of Public Statutes and Responsible Ministers shows all legislation included in the 1985 Revised Statutes of Canada, as well as certain other statutes going forward to current day. This table includes such information as the title of the act, its citation as well as its amendment and coming into force information.
Table of Private Acts
The Table of Private Acts is a historical index showing all federal private acts, other than those dealing with divorce, that have been published in the Statutes of Canada since 1867. The Table also includes amendments and repeals of those acts. This table is current to December 31 of the previous year (check the Table of Private Acts webpage for currency information).
Consolidated Index of Statutory Instruments
Section I: Table of regulations, statutory instruments (other than regulations) and other documents
This Table lists regulations, statutory instruments (other than regulations) and other documents in alphabetic order by title, indicating the statutory authority under which they were made.
This Table lists the Statutes of Canada in alphabetical order, along with the regulations, statutory instruments (other than regulations), and other documents under which they have been made. This Table also lists regulations that are exempt from registration and publication in the Canada Gazette, Part II, by the statutory authority under which they were made.
HeinOnline isn't just for legal articles! It is also home to digitized federal and provincial statutes. At the top of the home page of HeinOnline under "Browse Databases by Category", click on the "Canadian Content" link. This will initiate a drop-down menu that allows you to browse the "Acts of the Parliament of Canada (Annual Statutes)", "Provincial Statutes of Canada" and the "Revised Statutes of Canada." It is important to note that most of the statutes archived on HeinOnline are categorized by chapter number, not title. For certain years, useful tables and concordances have also been included.
Coverage:
Acts of the Parliament of Canada (Annual Statutes)
Revised Statutes of Canada
HeinOnline has also begun to digitize some regulations:
Consolidated Regulations of Canada
Each of the above sections are also home to special legislative historic volumes that HeinOnline has digitized and made available.
Every licensee of the Law Society of Ontario has remote access to this database. If you're a licensee, contact us for login information.
Looking for federal bills going back to the 1st session of the 35th parliament? Look no further! LEGISinfo provides electronic access to a wide range of information about each bill, such as:
*Unfortunately, the new version of LEGISinfo that was introduced in 2021 no longer provides the coming into force information of bills. However, Great Library staff annotates our federal statute volumes with coming into force information; for help with this, contact staff.
LEGISinfo also contains useful tables such as "Legislation at a Glance" which provides an overview of bills under consideration in either the Senate or the House of Commons (replete with information concerning the current stage of a bill).
Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources provides digitized versions of the federal bills, debates, journals, and committee documentation of the Senate and the House of Commons from the 1st Session of the 1st Parliament (1867) until the end of the 1st Session of the 35th Parliament (1996). Start your search by simply choosing to browse through the House of Commons or Senate debates, and then choose the correct Parliament and Session. Remember: it's important when researching Hansard for a particular bill to read both the House of Commons and Senate materials.
And of course, the library's print collection is always available for use. We have the official federal legislative volumes (annual, revisions and special) going back before Confederation, and have all the official legislative volumes (annual, revisions and special) for all 13 provinces and territories. The print versions of these volumes are useful to have because they possess tables, like Tables of Public Statutes, and concordances that are vital to the legislative historic search. Additionally, many of our volumes have been annotated by library staff with useful information like coming into force information. For more information on our annotated volumes, look to our blog post At your Fingertips: Proclamations and Annotations.