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
has a dual mandate. This mandate derives from the dual role of the Minister of Justice who is also the Attorney General of Canada.
In support of the Minister of Justice, the Department is responsible for providing policy and program advice and direction
through the development of the legal content of bills, regulations and guidelines. In support of the Attorney General,
the Department is responsible for litigating civil cases by or on behalf of the federal Crown and for providing
legal advice to federal law enforcement agencies and other government departments.
The site provides a starting point for Canadian resources:
Point-in-time access to consolidated Acts and regulations
An advanced search engine that allows the use of complex search patterns, including word proximity and wildcard operators
Regulations listed alphabetically on the new 'Regulations by Title' page
Amendments "Not in force" and "Related provisions" links
An alternative view of the data using frames
Side-by-side, bilingual PDFs of the Frequently Accessed Laws list.
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 all
Supreme Court of Canada decisions since January 1948 and earlier judgments prior to that.
The Canadian Bar Association provides
a comprehensive set of links to legal resources in Canada, including State resources.
A Canadian QC called
Judith Bowers provides a wonderful compendium page of links to all
the most significant Canadian resources.
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.
Bankruptcy Canada is an organization that brings together trustees
to provide impartial information on bankruptcy. There is a Q & A blog (anonymous)
which has helped answer thousands of questions that Canadians have about bankruptcy in Canada since 2005. There are
three bankruptcy experts answering these anonymous questions daily. An important and more general part of the site is an extensive
Guide to Canadian Legal Resources
Canadian personal injury and disability law blog
contains over 60 free case summaries of recent personal injury and disability cases throughout Canada.
The blog is provided by lawyer Mehran Yazdani of
Yazdani law office, a firm which specialises in disability law.
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.
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.
Comments or queries or information about other Canadian resources?