Federal Statutes

Best Guide to Canadian Legal Research
Copyright © 1995-2008 Catherine P. Best
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	Statute revisions
	Citing a statute
	Finding statutory provisions
	Finding amendments
	Finding legislative history

Statute revisions

Every 15 to 20 years, a revision of the federal statutes takes place. Revisions have occurred in 1985, 1970, 1952, 1927, 1906, and 1886. The purpose of a revision is to consolidate all amendments to the statutes since the last revision, and to improve the statutes by making non-substantive changes in wording, style and organisation. The mandate of the revision committee, and the effect of the revision, is set out in the Statute Revision Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. S-20.

When a revision occurs, names of statutes may change. Chapter and section numbering almost always changes. A concordance is prepared to make the transition to the new revision easier. There is a Table of Concordance from the 1970 revision to the 1985 revision.

Citing a statute

The citation for a statute varies depending on whether you are citing to a revision, or to a sessional volume. If you are citing to section 6 of chapter S-20 of the 1985 revision, the citation is:

Statute Revision Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. S-20, s. 6.

If you are citing to an Act that was passed after the 1985 revision, the citation is:

Proceeds of Crime Act, S.C. 1991, c. 26.

When you are citing to a sessional volume, then instead of R.S.C. (for Revised Statutes of Canada) you must use S.C. (for Statutes of Canada).

There is often confusion about whether you need to cite all amendments when you cite a statutory provision. Section 40(2) of the Interpretation Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. I-21 provides that any citation to an enactment in legislation is deemed to include all amendments to that enactment. The Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (3rd ed.) provides at page 8 that citations are presumed to be to the statute as amended. It is therefore not necessary to include amendment information. However, if the amendment is relevant to a point being discussed, it should be cited.

Finding statutory provisions

There are many different tools for locating relevant statutory provisions. There is a print index to the 1985 statutes, in both English and French editions, prepared by the Canadian Legal Information Centre. It is current to December 1988.

Other effective ways to locate a statutory provision include:

	reviewing text books and periodical articles on your topic
	conducting an electronic search of the text of the statutes
	scanning the names of the statutes
	reviewing the Canadian Encyclopedic Digest titles covering your topic
	reviewing CCH publications or other commercial statutes compilations on your topic, which often have detailed indices
	finding references to statutory provisions within relevant cases
	checking the Table of Private Acts


There are various electronic versions of federal legislation, which can be used for full text searches of the statutes and regulations:

	Quicklaw (likely to be the most current version)
	LawSource on WestlaweCARSWELL (includes a citator for statutes judicially considered)
	Department of Justice site
	CanLII

Finding amendments

Once you have located a statutory provision, you must ensure that it is current. There are a variety of ways to find amendments to a federal statute since the last revision.

	Check to see how current the version of the statute is that you are using. Then update to include amendments since the version was last updated.
	The Table of Public Statutes contains a list of legislative amendments since the previous revision. It is published every 6 months. The print version may be more current than the Internet version, and is easier to use. Sometimes the Canada Statute Citator will be more current, depending on the release dates for both publications.
	The version on Quicklaw is usually the most current electronic consolidation.
	The most current print resource for updating is the *Canada Legislative Index*. A new volume is published for each legislative session. Check in the Index tab under the title of the Act to find references to amending legislation.
	Bills are available on the parliamentary website.

Carswell publishes Annual Legislation as part of the Canadian Abridgment. You can use Annual Legislation to track legislative amendments and new legislation in all Canadian jurisdictions.

Amending legislation will be listed in these sources either by year and chapter number, or by bill number. Locate a copy of the amending legislation, using the print or electronic sources described above.

Finding legislative history

To conduct effective research, and particularly to look for judicial consideration of a statutory provision, you need to know its prior year, chapter, and section numbers. You can obtain this information (back to the last revision) from historical notes at the end of each section of the revised statutes.

A sample reference to the predecessor provision to section 123 of the Bills of Exchange Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. B-4, appearing immediately below that section, is R.S., c. B-5, s. 124. This means that in the 1970 revision of the federal statutes, this section was cited as Chapter B-5, section 124. Legislative history references are available in the looseleaf consolidation, in the Quicklaw RSCC database, and on the Canada Statute Service on CD ROM.

If you want to trace the references to a statutory provision back to the 1952 revision, you would look in the 1985 notes to find the 1970 section number, and in the 1970 notes to find the 1952 section number. If there are references to amendments between revisions, you find these by looking in the sessional volume for the year of the amendment. For example, a reference to S.C. 1997, c. 13, s. 2 refers you to section 2 of Chapter 13 in the sessional volume for 1997.

If you need to dig further into the legislative history of the provision, look up the name of the statute in the relevant issue of the Canada Legislative Index and find the bill number for it. You can then get references to parliamentary debates, and to other information about the bill, such as whether it was amended in committee. An excellent source of information for federal bills is LegisInfo.