Canadian Laws in Canada

The Role of the Queen and Her Representatives

In researching Canadian statutes and regulations, you will see references to the Governor General and to the Lieutenant Governor. These individuals are representatives of the Queen in Parliament and the provinces, respectively. Most federal and provincial legislation begins with the following phrase: “Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and the House of Commons [or the Legislative Assembly, in the case of provincial legislation], enacts as follows . . . .” In reality, the Queen had nothing to do with the legislation; the Queen’s representative formally enacted it on her behalf.

By and large, the Lieutenant Governor and Governor General are simply figure-heads, without much real power. They often simply “rubber stamp” legislation without playing an active role in policy-making. Similarly, while the Lieutenant Governor or the Governor General is often empowered to enact regulations under a statute, this does not mean that the Queen’s representative is drafting the regulations on his or her own. Usually, bureaucrats from the relevant government ministry will draft the regulations based on departmental policy and needs, and then forward them to the appropriate representative of the Queen for enactment.

Other duties of the Governor General and the Lieutenant Governor include opening and closing the legislative assembly, reading the speech from the throne, and acting as official host or hostess for special ceremonial occasions.

Statutes Versus Regulations

Statutes and regulations are both regarded as legislation since they regulate the conduct of people and have the impact of law.

There are, however, several basic distinctions between statutes and regulations. Statutes tend to state broad principles whereas regulations elaborate on the minute details that explain the broader principles in the enacting statute. Thus, the Highway Traffic Act provides that drivers must not speed and must yield to other drivers, while regulations to that act describe in very specific terms the size, shape and color of highway traffic signs, the safety features of school buses, and so on.

The legislative assembly enacts statutes after debate and a vote of the entire house. The governing statute prescribes the contents of the regulation— the regulations must not exceed the powers set out in the main statute. Statutes often empower administrative agencies to make rules that provide detail about how the statute is to be implemented. However, regulations must not exceed the powers set out in the main statute. This restriction prevents the government from attempting to do through regulation what would not have been allowed by statute.

Regulations are considered subordinate or delegated legislation (regulations are also known as statutory instruments). One advantage of putting the details into regulations is that such details often change and it is easier for the government to amend regulations than statutes. This is because amendments to regulations are not debated in the legislative assembly.

When is a statute in force?

Even after a bill has received Royal Assent, it may not be in force. A statute may come into force in one of three ways:

1. The statute will state when it comes into force. Such a statement is usually found at the end of the statute.
2. The statute will state that it comes into force upon receiving Royal Assent.
3. The statute will state that it comes into force upon “proclamation.” The date of proclamation is usually given in the Gazette, a publication used by the government to publish regulations and other notices. Federal bills must be published in the Canada Gazette, Part III before they are official.

There are advantages to the government in having a law come into force upon “proclamation.” At the time a bill passes third reading, the government may not know when it, and the relevant ministry, will be prepared for the new legislation to come into force. Brochures may need to be printed, staff may need training, and so on. A law coming into force upon proclamation provides flexibility. It allows the government to choose a proclamation date, and to pass this information on to the Lieutenant Governor (or Governor General) for announcement, whenever the government is ready.

Note that acts may be proclaimed in force either in part or in whole, and some sections may remain unproclaimed indefinitely. The federal and provincial statute citators, discussed below (and available also on CD-ROM), should be used to determine the status of any statute that one is working with.

Federal proclamation dates can be found in a number of sources, including the “Proclamations of Canada” tables in the sessional volumes to the statutes, the Canada Gazette Part III , the Canada Statute Citator , the Canada Legislative Index, and QUICKLAW (CSB). Ontario proclamation dates can also be found through a number of sources, including the Ontario Gazette , the Ontario Statute Citatorand QUICKLAW (OSB).

How Laws Are Published

Statutes:

• Canada Gazette III:

A federal bill that has received royal assent becomes an enforceable act of Parliament only when it is first published in the Canada Gazette, Part III.

• Sessional or Annual Statutes:

Traditionally, up until 1984, the federal statutes of one session were published together in “sessional” volumes. Each sessional volume contained the legislation of a particular session. However, the disadvantages of publishing statutes by session became apparent when parliamentary sessions began to extend over several years, in which case the sessional volume is identified with reference to each of the years in which the session was active. Thus you may come across a reference like this: The Canada Ports Corporations Act, S.C. 1980-81-82-83, c. 121; this act was actually passed in 1983.

To avoid such complications, new statutes passed either by the federal parliament or by the provincial legislatures are now published in bound “annual” volumes. Each volume contains the legislation for the relevant calendar year.

• Revised Statutes:

Statutes are also frequently amended or repealed by other statutes or through passage of time they cease to be in effect. This means that in order to obtain a version of an act that includes all the amendments made to it since its original enactment, you may have to refer to several annual volumes. In order to avoid the process of checking several annual or sessional volumes to update an act, all the statutes contained in sessional and annual volumes are periodically revised and re-enacted and all the amendments incorporated into their original acts, in a series of volumes called the “Revised Statutes”. These revised volumes are then enacted as a whole, and they supersede the sessional and annual volume versions of the statutes. Revisions also correct spelling mistakes, renumber sections, and occasionally incorporate some changes in the ordering of an act.

A statute remains in force until it is repealed or amended by another statute. It may be repealed in whole or in part. Both the repealed and the repealing sections are omitted from subsequent publications of revised statutes, although both will be noted in a table accompanying the revision. This ensures that a researcher using the Revised Statutes and their tables will be aware of any provisions that may have been enacted and repealed in the period between revisions.
Regulations:

The federal regulations were last consolidated in 1978 in the Consolidated Regulations of Canada, 1978 (C.R.C. 1978). Amendments to these regulations as well as new or amended regulations are published in the Canada Gazette Part II. The federal regulations are also available Quicklaw and Lexis-Nexis, and on the Internet.

The Ontario regulations were last consolidated in 1990 in the Revised Regulations of Ontario, 1990. Amendments to these regulations as well as new or amended regulations are published in the Ontario Gazette. The Ontario regulations are also available the Internet.

Procedures for the publication of federal regulations are governed by the Statutory Instruments Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. S-22 while Ontario regulations are governed by the Regulations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. R.21.

How Laws are Amended

Since the federal statutes were last published in consolidated form in 1985, and the Ontario statutes in 1990, it is important to realize that if, in 1999, you were to consult only the print versions of the 1985 or 1990 statutes, your research would be incomplete. Many of the statutes published in these older consolidated versions will have been amended or repealed since that time.

It is relatively simple for the government to amend a law by introducing into the legislature a bill that amends certain sections of the original statute. In some cases, the government will introduce a bill that amends more than one statute (this is called an omnibus bill). In other cases, a new bill will completely repeal (revoke) the original Act and replace it with the amended version. In any event, bills that amend legislation must pass three readings and receive Royal Assent in the same manner as bills introducing new legislation.

Noting up Statutes and Regulations

As mentioned earlier, it is important to ensure that you update or “note up” your statutory research to ensure that the information you have found is recent and has not been repealed or amended. There is usually both an official and unofficial method of noting up legislation. The unofficial method is usually easier and quite reliable, but if the matter is important, the researcher should confirm the research using an official method of noting up. For noting up statutes and regulations, consult the applicable sections in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of this handbook or consult Updating Statutes and Regulations (4th ed.) by Mary Jane T. Sinclair.

Differences Between Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.

The foregoing discussion relates primarily to Canadian legislative material. While much of the information also applies to legislative material in the United Kingdom and the United States, the legislative systems in these countries differ from Canada’s legislative system in the several ways:

United Kingdom

Much of Canada’s parliamentary procedure has been directly inherited from England. Hence, there are many similarities between the legislative processes of Canada and the United Kingdom.

As in Canada, bills in the United Kingdom must pass through three readings in both chambers of the British Parliament: the British House of Commons and the British House of Lords. English bills may originate in either chamber of Parliament, and they must receive Royal Assent before becoming law.

Unlike Canada and the United States, however, the United Kingdom is a unitary jurisdiction, meaning that there is no provincial or state law in the United Kingdom. Instead, members from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are represented in Parliament in London.

Unlike Canada but similar to the United States, the laws of England are not officially consolidated. This means that laws enacted hundreds of years ago may “still be on the books” (so to speak) in chronological publications commencing with the Statutes at Large (1225 to 1830). To minimize the difficulty of accessing statutory material, researchers can use a commercial publication, Halsbury’s Statutes , which consolidates statutes by subject and provides subject access through indexes and other value-added features.

United States

Like Canada and the United Kingdom, the federal government of the United States has a bicameral legislative assembly. Bills must pass through a three-reading process in both chambers before becoming law and can originate in either body of the U.S. Congress – the House of Representatives or the Senate. Bills from the former body are identified by the letter “H” and the number of the bill (H.R. 100), whereas bills from the latter body are identified by the letter “S” and the number of the bill (S. 100).

The President of the United States has power to veto bills that have passed both chambers in Congress – a power not shared by the Prime Minister of Canada.

As in Canada, power in the United States is shared between two levels of government. In the United States, however, the state governments have jurisdiction over criminal law (hence the different rules among states for the death penalty). As well, residual power generally lies in the states, while in Canada it lies in the federal government.

As in the United Kingdom, the U.S. federal government (and most state governments) do not periodically consolidate their laws. Thus the United States Statutes at Large, the official source of U.S. federal law, is a permanent collection of the laws of Congress bound in sessional volumes.

Laws in the U.S. are initially published as “slip” laws (the equivalent of our Royal Assent-version bills), printed in softcover format. U.S. laws are then are published in hardbound format, sequentially by bill number, in hardbound sessional volumes of the Statutes at Large . To make access to these laws easier, the United States Code consolidates laws according to subject matter. The United States Code Annotatedis an unofficial commercial version of the United States Code that has value added features explaining the statutes, and providing information on secondary sources related to the statutes. Statutory material in the Code Annotated is kept up-to-date by paper supplements called “pocket parts,” which are inserted inside the back cover of the hardbound volumes. The United States Code – Congressional and Administrative News is a fortnightly publication listing recent enactments and other information relating to business of Congress.

The Code of Federal Regulations are the equivalent of the Consolidated Regulations of Canada,1978 .

U.S. federal and state legislative material is available on Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis. The Internet is also a good finding tool for this information. Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, for example, contains theUnited States Code in searchable form at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode, and the Code of Federal Regulations at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/cfr .

Comparison of the Names of Legislation-Making Bodies
Canada / United Kingdom / United States:

• Parliament / Parliament / Congress
• House of Commons / House of Commons / House of Representatives
• Senate / House of Lords / Senate

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This entry was last updated: April 22, 2016