LAW - Starting Points - Beginning Your Canadian Legal Research
Finding legislation
Research in Canadian legislation includes finding bills, statutes and regulations. It may be in federal, provincial or territorial jurisdictions. Some materials can be located on line - other materials may only be available on paper in the law library collection.
As well as the primary legislative materials the law library has some annotated acts that add explanatory notes and case law summaries. Annotated acts may also contain concordances between different jursidictions.
Legislative synonyms
When dealing with legislative materials you may find that an item is also known by a different name:
- Statutes = Acts = Laws
- Regulations = Rules = Statutory Instruments = subordinate legislation
- Hansard = Debates
A quick guide to researching Canadian statutes
- A Quick Guide to Researching Canadian StatutesCall Number: KF240 .Q85 2006ISBN: 0459244094Publication Date: 2006This guide is intended as a basic introduction to the framework under which statutes are enacted and updated.
Federal statutes and regulations
Federal bills, statutes and regulations, including some historical materials, are available on government websites. The text of and background information regarding bills are available on LEGISinfo, and statutes and regulations can be found on the Justice Laws Website. Federal statutes and regulations are freely available through the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII).
- Justice Laws WebsiteFederal government website.Contains Consolidated Acts, Consolidated Regulations, Annual Statutes of Canada, Table of Public Statutes, Table of Private Acts, Consolidated Index of Statutes, Consitutional Documents, Canada Gazette, List of Approved Orders in Council since 1990, and Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Canadian Forces. Also connected to the Parliament of Canada.
- CanLIICanadian Legal Information Institute is a free resource, containing comprehensive coverage of case law and legislation for all Canadian jurisdictions.
- WestlawNext Canada(U of C access only) Has Canadian content that includes current statutes and regulations and some repealed statutes.Westlaw includes nearly 15,000 databases and over 700 full text law reviews.
- Martin's Online Criminal Code(U of C access only) Access to the Criminal Code at a particular point in time, along with the corresponding commentary. Browse through previous versions of Martin's Annual Criminal Code, or search for a particular section or subsection at a specific date.Includes the full text of the following: all versions of the Criminal Code dating back to 1955, cross-references, synopses, and annotations from Martin's Annual Criminal Code dating back to 1955, forms of charges dating back to 1970, and cases referred to in Martin's case law annotations.
Alberta statutes and regulations web resources
Provincial bills, statutes and regulations are available on government websites. The text of and background information regarding bills are available on the Legislative Assembly’s website. Free pdf versions of statutes and regulations are available on the Alberta Queen’s Printer website. Historical bills and statutes, along with legislative intent document such as debates and journals, are available from our online Alberta Law Collection. Statutes and regulations are also freely available on CanLII.
- Legislative Assembly of AlbertaIncludes Bills and Amendments as well as Assembly Documents and Records.Including Hansard since 1991 and Journals.
- Alberta King's PrinterProvincial government website that contains an alphabetical listing of statutes. Also includes Alberta Gazette.Official source of Alberta government laws and publications since 1906.
- The Alberta Law CollectionDocuments that form Alberta's legislative history: all of the Statutes up to 1990, Legislative Assembly Bills, Debates and Journals, the Alberta Gazette and the Ordinances of the Northwest Territories prior to the birth of Alberta.Historical only.
- CanLIICanadian Legal Information Institute is a free resource, containing comprehensive coverage of case law and legislation for all Canadian jurisdictions.Articles and books are not available through CanLII. Federal and provincial legislation and case law coverage varies with the jurisdiction.
- WestlawNext Canada(U of C access only) Has Canadian content that includes current statutes and regulations and some repealed statutes.Westlaw includes nearly 15,000 databases and over 700 full text law reviews.
- Last Updated: Sep 21, 2023 8:29 AM
- URL: https://libguides.ucalgary.ca/guides/lawstartingpoints
- Print Page