This page was last updated on July 10th.

Canadians generally hate to be thought of as a mere adjunct of the USA and their Internet presence is distinctly different from that of their southerly neighbour. Their sources are much less "pretty" than US ones but the basic legal materials are nevertheless well advanced. Note, incidentally, that all official legal material is provided in both French and English.

The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) has been initiated by The Federation of Law Societies of Canada, the umbrella organisation of thirteen of the fourteen governing bodies of the legal profession in Canada together with LexUM, the computer law research team from the University of Montreal. It provides free access to increasing quantities of the legislation and case law of Canada, both federal law and from the individual states. It is the latest member of the worldwide family of Legal Information Institutes which includes AustLII and Bailii.

The Department of Justice of Canada provides a starting point for Canadian resources and, in particular, provides Consolidated Statutes and Regulations up to April 30th, 2000.

The Parliamentary Site covers ongoing Bills in the House of Commons or the Senate and information generally about Parliament and MP's.

The Supreme Court of Canada provides free Internet access to all Supreme Court of Canada decisions since January 1993.

A Canadian QC called Judith Bowers provides a wonderful compendium page of links to all the most significant Canadian resources. This is probably the best starting point of all.

Research lawyer Catherine Best has provided a site called Best Guide to Canadian Legal Research. She is also an Adjunct Professor with the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia and this site shows a desire to assist researchers and show them how to find what they want.

Legal Issues: Canada is an online journal containing Canadian law resources, legislation and news. It is compiled by Colleen Armstrong.

The Access to Justice Network (ACJNet), partially funded by the Department of Justice of Canada, provides the public with legal information and educational resources from across the country.

Centre de recherche en droit public offers a collection of documents useful to the legal community and all those interested by Canadian Law. At the moment the site is just in French, but an English version is on the way.

American Law Sources Online is a useful new source of law for the USA, Canada and Mexico. There are sections offering federal, state or province law sources, as well as commentaries and practice aids.

The Canadian Legal Information Centre provides a source of Canadian cases and statutes.

A large Canadian legal database is called QuickLaw and covers links to cases and legal documents in Canada and elsewhere. There are over 1100 searchable databases and bulletin boards of full text judgments from all court levels and many administrative tribunals in Canada, as well as full text databases of legislation, tax and news. This is a subscription service. A disadvantage is that the service is still basically a "teletype" (non- Windows) service, despite the fact that you can access it over the Internet. This will probably change before too long. There are some free "tasters" on the site, including access to some recent Supreme Court judgments.

Comments or queries or information about other Canadian resources?