Federal Legislative Research

During the process of legislative research there are a number of things to consider. Here are 5 important steps to keep in mind as you investigate your legal question.

1. Know your point-in-time.
   1. Statutes and regulations change by amendment, so it is important to know the applicable time for which you need the legislation. Often you will want the current version. Other times you’ll want legislation as it read at a particular time.
2. Find the statutes (also called an ‘act’) and/or the regulations. This can be in print or online. Often your secondary source research will provide you with the name or names of potentially relevant legislation to your question. Don’t forget to make sure you are looking in the right jurisdiction.
3. Determine whether the act or regulation is in force, and if so, which provisions are in force.
4. Find relevant amendments to the act or regulation.
5. Find judicial consideration
   1. Has the act or regulation been considered by a court?
   2. Are there cases that interpret the relevant legislative provisions?

For more legal research help, you can check out our other videos. You can also send us an email at lawref@uvic.ca or visit us at the Research Help Desk

Official Sources of Canadian Federal law are published by the Queen’s Printer of Canada. Some common official print publications are the Canada Gazette, the Statutes of Canada, and Revised Statutes of Canada. [All available in the uvic law library’s print collection] The Canada Gazette is the government’s official newspaper and can be found online. All consolidated acts and regulations on the Justice Laws website are also considered official (as of June 1, 2009). One way to tell if the document is official is if it’s marked with the seal of the crown. For consolidated acts and regulations on the Justice Laws website, this seal can be found on the title page of PDF versions. [show example] In practice and in school, authoritative, and unofficial sources are nearly always sufficient up to the final stages of work. Although reliable, authoritative and unofficial sources cannot be used as official evidence of the law in the courtroom. Authoritative versions of government publications are commonly found online. The Annual Statutes database on the Justice Laws website is an example of an authoritative source as well as the Debates of the House of Commons (links provided). Unofficial sources are typically online reproductions of legal information through commercial & non-commercial publishers. These sources of primary law can sometimes be faster to find and contain links to supplementary information. Check out our other videos on how to use some of these source! For more legal research help you can email us at lawref@uvic.ca or visit us at the Research Help Desk

A consolidated act is the current version of an act that incorporates all amendments to the act. As of June 1 2009, all of the consolidated acts on the Justice Laws website are considered “official”! [Check out our video on federal publications to learn more about official, authoritative, and unofficial source] CanLii, an unofficial source, is also a useful option for researching legislation and legislative interpretation, but in this video we are going to be using Justice Laws. To get to the Justice Law website you typing in this URL [http://laws.justice.gc.ca/], do a googling search for Justice Laws or go through the library’s refined databases list. On the Justice Laws website, under Law, click on Consolidated Acts. You can find the act alphabetically or searching by title name. based on our legal research question, we are interested in looking  for the Copyright Act. The regulations prescribed under the authority of the act are listed and linked at the bottom [See our other videos on regulations for more info] We can choose to look at the HTML version, XML or PDF. The PDF version is marked by the seal of the crown, and should be used if required for use in the courtroom. [open PDF]. Also on the title page, we can find the currency statement. The copyright act is current to October 25, 2017 and was last amended on June 19, 2017.  This information is important in knowing if you have to do further updating. [How do I update? Check out our video on how to update update an act – linked at the end of this video.

This video will demonstrate two ways of finding statute amendments using the Justice Laws website. For the purposes of our legal research question, we are interested in finding section 28.1 of the Copyright Act. The consolidated acts on the Justice Laws website are generally updated every two weeks and considered ‘official’. 1) Method 1:  Using a consolidated act: from the Justice Laws homepage [http://laws.justice.gc.ca/], click in Consolidated Acts. Search for the Copyright Act.  For the purposes of our research we are interested in looking at section 28.1. In the footer of that section we can see the amendment trail.

• R.S., 1985, c. 10 (4th Supp.), s. 6;
• 2012, c. 20, s. 19.

This can be interpreted as:

• Enacted in the 4th supplement of the Revised Statutes in 1985 chapter 10, sec 6
• amended in 2012 chap 20 sec 19

2) Method 2 – Using the TPS. From the Justice Laws homepage we are going to click on the Table of Public Statutes under Resources.- make sure to check the currency date of the Table to see how much you need to update the information [link to video is possible] Here we can find a statute alphabetically. We’ll look under ‘C’ for the Copyright Act. CTL-F to find! All amendments since 1985 are listed in order followed by a citation referencing the amended statute. Let’s look at section 28.1 – added, R.S., c. 10 (4th Supp.), s. 6; 2012, c. 20, s. 19 As you can see, this information is telling us the same thing as our first method. Added to the 4th supplement of the Revised Statutes published in 1985, and amended in 2012 Want to see what the final amending act looked like? (2012, c. 20, s.21) Follow the steps in our video on how to find enacted statutes.

Acts can come into force in many ways: – upon receiving royal assent – a date specified in the act itself – under certain conditions – or by order of the Governor in Council in the form of a Statutory Instrument (SI) – [by the date specified in the SI, not the date of the registration of the SI] Also, the whole act or just certain sections of the act can come into force on different dates. A ‘commencement’ section near the end of the act usually specifies the means of coming into force. The Federal Interpretation Act states that when there is no provision specifying how the Act is to come into force, it is deemed to come into force on the day it receives royal assent. Before you start, it’s important to know if you’re looking for a prior version of a statute or a current one. Let’s looks at an example. When did the current version of section 28.1 in The Copyright Act come into force?

1. We can start by finding the Act on the Justice Laws website by searching Consolidated Acts. Find the Copyright Act and Clicking on Section 28.1. As we can see in the amendment trail, the latest version of this section comes from an amendment in 2012, c.20, s. 19.
2. Now we want to know when this came into force, so we’re going to check the Table of Public Statutes (TPS).  The TPS notes changes in force and not in force.
3. By searching alphabetically, we can find our Act
4. Coming into force (CIF) information can be found by scrolling to the bottom of the Act. We’re looking for our amending act, and they are ordered chronologically.
5. There is only one for 2012 and it mentions all the sections from that amending act and when they came into force.
6. [highlight sections] Section 28.1 came into force on November 7, 2012 by order of the Governor in Council.

This step is important if you need to know what the law is as of today. Updating an act means finding out whether it has been amended or repealed since the currency date at the top of the current consolidated version.

In this video we are going to look at two ways of updating an act, using the Copyright Act as our example.

Here I am at the consolidated version of the Copyright Act – If you want to learn more about I got here check out our video on “How to find a consolidated Act”.

We will start by reviewing the currency date on the title page. Is says that this consolidated act is current to October 20 2021. Today’s date is November 11th making it 22 days old.

As we can see, consolidated versions of acts on Justice Laws can sometimes be a couple of weeks old and we want to know, has it changed since then?

Step one:

Our first step will be to check the Canada Gazette Part III to see if anything has been published following the currency date. To get to the Canada Gazette website, we can start from the law library homepage, from here we can click on “Refined database list” then on “Canadian Law” and then on “Canada

Gazette”. On the Canada Gazette page, we can click on “Canada Gazette publications” and from here we will click on “Part III Acts of Parliament”.

The first link will bring us to the latest publication. We can see that the latest publication is from March 19 2021, which is before the currency date of our consolidated act. So in this case we would not go any further. But if there was something published after the currency date, you would go into the PDF version, and then clicking on the sidebar tab, under English, you can check the “Orders and Proclamations”, and scan to see if any acts have come into force that have amended the act in question.

6 If no new issues of the Canada Gazette Part III were published after the currency date, check the Canada Gazette Part II. The links to that are just above Part 3 on their website, and the first link will get us to the latest publication.

We can see that there are two issues published after our currency date.

From this point, we would look at the Table of Contents of each issue published after the currency date. You can check the HTML or the PDF version, I will click on PDF. Using the sidebar, I can navigate to the Table of Contents and from here I will review the list of statutory instruments and statutory orders (SIs and SORs) and see if there a regulation amending the Copyright act. I will also look at the Table of Contents of the other issue published after the currency date.

There are no amending regulations for our act, so we will now move on to step 2.

Step 2:

In step 2 we are going to check the LegisInfo website for sessional bills introducing recent or proposed amendments to the Copyright Act.

We can get to the Legisinfo website, from the law library homepage by clicking on ->”Refined Database List” then “Canadian law” and then “Legisinfo”.

From the LegisInfo Hompage, we are going to search in the search bar for “Copyright Act” in quotations. Searching by the act name in quotations will provide us with any bills that are amending that act because it will be mentioned in that bill.

The results will automatically default to the current session.

Now we are going to look for bills that have received royal assent since the currency date

Of the 4 bills, none of them have received royal assent.

At this point, our updating is complete. For more legal research help email us at lawref@uvic.ca or visit us at the research help desk

A consolidated regulation is the current version of a regulation that incorporates all amendments to that regulation. Using the Justice Laws website, we’ll look at 2 common ways to search for consolidated regulations. Current versions of consolidated regulations are considered ‘official’ on Justice Laws as of June 1 2009. Method 1) Know the name, but not the enabling statute? You can find a consolidated regulation on the Justice Laws Website by looking under Laws and clicking on “Consolidated Regulations”. You can search for it alphabetically or by the title search box. We’re going to search for Book Importation Regulations, SOR/99-324. As we can see at the top of the title page, the enabling act is the Copyright Act.

• Note the currency of the regulation at the top of the page. [highlight 2017-10-25]

Method 2) Don’t know the name, but know the enabling statute? Regulations can also be accessed through links at the bottom of the Table of Contents of their enabling statute. For example, if we search for the Copyright Act, we will find the Book Importation Regulation at the bottom of its Table of Contents.

Using Justice Laws we’re going to look at two ways to find prior versions of the Canada Labour Standards Regulation (C.R.C., c. 986). Note: the Point-in-time data on Justice Laws for regulations is available from March 22, 2006 onwards. 1) Click on ‘Consolidated Regulations’ on Justice Laws and search for ‘Canada Labour Standards Regulation’. On the right of the currency statement at the top of the page, there is a link to “Previous Versions”. From here you can search for the version that was in force during the period relevant to your research. 2) We can also look at previous versions of a specific section in the regulation – let’s go find section 12. At the bottom of this section there is a link to “previous version”. Here we can see what section 12 looked like between March 22, 2006 and  March 15, 2015. Our section has additional amendments. If we want to see how this section read prior to 2006, we would need to look up SOR/94 668, s. 5 in Part II of the Canada Gazette. Check out our video on How to find regulations as registered for more info.

This step is important if you need to know what the law is as of today. Updating a regulation means finding out whether it has been amended, or repealed since the currency date provided at the top of the current consolidated version.

Based on our research question, we are interested in updating the Book Importation Regulations.

1. First we will locate the consolidated regulation on justice laws. You can access the Justice Laws website from the law library homepage under refined database list.
2. Find and note the currency date and today’s date. It is 13 days old.
3. to update our regulation we are going to check the Canada Gazette Part II to see if any issues have been published since the currency date of February 15th, 2018.
4. Most recent publications was on February 21st , after our currency  date, so we are going to have a look at this release to see if any regulations are listed that amend the Book Importation Regulations.
5. If no regulation is found that amends or repeals your regulation, your updating is complete.

Important insights on legislative intent can be found by looking at the debates of the legislature.  Other ways to find legislative intent are looking at law reform materials, research papers and white papers, to name a few. Today we are going to be focusing on finding debates.

The record of the debates is called the “Hansard”. The debates are a verbatim record of what each member says in the legislature. The Hansard records the members’ debates on a bill at each stage of the bill: 1^st reading, 2^nd reading, committee stage, 3rd reading, and Royal Assent.   When researching legislative intent, the second reading and the committee stage are the most informative.

At the federal level, bills are debated in both the House of Commons and the Senate.  Looking at the second reading and committee stages in both the House and Senate provides the most information on legislative intent.

The second reading is where you will find the most substantial debate on a bill. At second reading the purpose and reasoning behind the bill is discussed and debated, and major speeches are made by the sponsoring minister or, in the case of a private members bill, by the bill’s sponsor.

The committee stage is when the bill is reviewed and can be amended.  Witnesses can be called on to share their opinions with the committee. The committee then reviews the bill clause-by-clause. The committee stage can provide valuable details on the bill in question.

Based on our research question, we want to look at the debates around the “First Nations, Metis and Inuit Children, Youth and Families Act” SC 2019 chapter 24.

Hansard from 2001 onwards is available on LegisInfo at <parl.ca/legisinfo/>. Once you are on the site, you can navigate to the bill by clicking on “bills” and then selecting the parliament and session, if known. You can also search using the search bar at the top of the page. The search will automatically default to the current session. You can change to “all sessions” for a more general search. You can also limit to searching the bill title only.

Once you have navigated to the bill, you can see the progress that the bill has made and can look at the links to the debates and committee work by clicking on the down arrows. Links are provided for the debates in the House of Commons and in the Senate.

Under the “details” and “about” tabs, there is additional information on the bill. Of note under the “details” tab, is the “major speeches at second reading” This will provide you with links to the debates of the major speeches in both the House and the Senate. If this link is not available for a bill, you can still navigate to the major speeches, under the “progress tab” by clicking on second reading, and the individual sittings. You can find the debates for your specific bill by clicking on “Government orders”, and then navigating to the bill you are looking for.

For the committee stage, sometimes only the report is available online.  For newer bills, the committee evidence, minutes, and witness briefs and comments are available. For the House of Commons Committee, the easiest way to access all of these documents is to click on the “consideration in committee” down arrow, then “study details”.  On this page, you can find the PDFs of briefs submitted by interested organizations to the committee. There is also a list of witnesses, showing which organization or individual spoke on a given day, with links to the transcripts of their evidence.

There is also a list of the specific meetings with the audio recording as well as the evidence transcripts and minutes of the meeting.   Clicking on “evidence” will bring you to the transcript of each meeting.

To double check any additional useful information on our bill, Click on “work” at the top of the page. Scrolling through the list we can see that for our bill there was also a pre-committee stage discussion on the subject matter of the bill. Clicking on the link will bring you to the webpage, where again you can see the witnesses and their evidence, as well as the meetings, where you can click to watch the video link, or look at the evidence transcript or minutes of the meetings.

To access the Senate committee documents, back at the LegisInfo page for our bill, click on the down arrow for Senate “consideration in Committee” and click on the “studies and bills” link, which will bring you to Senate committee page and will link you to the correct session for the bill.

For our bill, there is the committee stage and also the pre-study stage to look for. Once you have found the bill, click on the arrow by the “people around a table” icon, which will provide you with more information on the meeting. Clicking on “show list of witnesses” will show you which witnesses spoke in which meeting. The icons on the side of the link will provide you with a video of the meeting, the transcript of the meeting, and the minutes of the meeting. Beside the table icon is another icon which provides links to the briefs from the witnesses. This same information is also available for the pre-study meetings of this committee.   The “show witnesses link” show which days the witnesses gave their evidence, the icons provide links to the minutes of the meeting, the transcripts of the evidence given, and the audio or video recording of the meeting, as well as links to the witnesses briefs.

The debates from 1996 onwards for the House of Commons are available on the House of Commons website at ourcommons.ca. The debates from 1996 onwards for the senate are available on the senates website at <https://sencanada.ca/en/in-the-chambers/debates>. The debates and committee minutes in both the House of Commons and the Senate from 1867 to 1996 are available on the Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources website at <parl/canadiana.ca/browse>.

For more legal research help, or information on how to research Hansard prior to 2001, please email us at lawref@uvic.ca.