The Canada Gazette is the official newspaper of the Government of Canada, divided into three parts: Part I, Notices and proposed regulations; Part II, Regulations; Part III, Acts of Parliament. This site contains Gazettes for 1998 onwards. To browse by year select “Canada Gazette Publications”. The Canada Gazette is available in both PDF and HTML format. The PDF version is regarded as official from 2003 onwards. Earlier Gazettes will be found on the archive site, A Nation’s Chronicle.

This guide from the Library of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London), although to a certain extent relating to the Library’s own holdings, nonetheless provides a useful summary of Canada’s constitutional and legal history, and the administration of justice at Federal and Provincial level. The coverage of online resources is extensive, indicating what material is available on subscription-based services and providing links to free resources. Much of the advice given on legal research methods is transferable to other other library collections.

The Government of Canada site provides links to all Canadian government department and agency web sites and to the official web sites of the provinces and territories of Canada.

This guide by the Library of Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario) provides links to free sources of Canadian Federal and provincial legislation, bills, official gazettes, Hansards, and judgments. Historical as well as current legislation is covered, although not all the sources of historical material are free to access.

CanLII is the Canadian Legal Information Institute, a gateway site developed by LexUM (University of Montreal) for the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. Federal and provincial case law and legislation may be searched or browsed individually, or the whole database searched. In addition to primary materials, “Commentary” includes full-text books and articles, journals and case digests.

This guide to legal research and sources of law (print and online, with links where applicable) was written by Ted Tjaden when holding the post of Co-ordinator, Information Services at the Bora Laskin Law Library, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. It is an updated version, published on the LLRX.com web site April 2008.

The Federal Court is Canada’s national trial court, successor since 1971 to the Exchequer Court. The web site provides information on the history, administration and personnel of the court. For court rules and practice guides, select “Law and Practice” and for hearing lists and court decisions select “Court files and decisions”. There are full text decisions from December 1990 onwards, although coverage is very selective before 1997.

This site is maintained by the Treaty Section of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It provides information on (and in some cases the text of) treaties entered into by Canada, whether bilateral, multilateral or plurilateral. There is in addition a substantial chapter on treaty practice and procedure.

This Canadian government site includes Constitution; Consolidated Statutes and Regulations, texts of which have, since 2009, been deemed “official” and which are updated every two weeks; annual statutes 2001 onwards; Table of Public Statutes updated to December 2020; Table of Private Acts 1867 to December 2020; Consolidated Index of Statutory Instruments to September 2020; also general information on legislative programme.

The Commission was established by the Canadian government in 1997 to provide independent advice on the improvement, modernisation and reform of the law of Canada. Its research and findings are presented thematically rather than chronologically and include research papers, final reports and links to relevant resources originating in the various Canadian provinces as well as in foreign jurisdictions. NB: The Law Commission of Canada lost its funding in 2006 and no further publications have been added to the web site; this is an archived version.

Legaltree is a collaboratively built web site combining two elements: a very extensive collection of “Research links and resources” (compiled by the site administrators), and “User contributed content” in the form of research articles, news and books.

The Canada Gazette is the official publication in which Acts of Parliament, subsidiary legislation and government notices appear. This project of Library and Archives Canada (the Canadian national library) aims to provide a searchable database of the entire archive of issues from 1841 to 1997, based on digital scans of the original paper parts or of the microfilms. Searches can be narrowed to specific types of Gazette issue, for instance annual indexes.

This scholarly journal has been published by Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, since 1958. The web site contains a complete archive of previous articles in PDF. These are browsable by volume, and there is an advanced search facility.

The Canadian Parliament web site includes current Bills, which can be tracked using the “LEGISinfo” facility; also Hansard, substantive reports of committees, information on Senators and MPs and on the history and procedure of Parliament. Coverage is from 2001 onwards for Hansard and 1994 onwards for LEGISinfo.

Researching Canadian Law is a narrative account of Canadian legal systems and legal research, with hypertext links to the sources mentioned, provided on the GlobaLex web site. The original author is Ted Tjaden. The latest version was published February 2019, with updating by Kim Nayyer, Associate University Librarian (Law, Legal Research & Writing Program) for the UVic Libraries and an Adjunct Associate Professor for the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia.

The Supreme Court of Canada was established in 1875. Its web site gives an account of the history, role, composition and administration of the court, information on pending cases and the full text of the Court’s rules. Canada Supreme Court Reports are available from 1876 onwards (NB: the first volume bears the publication date: 1878), and judgments in leave applications from 2005.

The Conference was founded in 1918 to harmonize the laws of the provinces and territories of Canada, and where appropriate the federal laws as well. It also makes recommendations for changes to federal criminal legislation based on identified deficiencies, defects or gaps in the existing law, or based on problems created by judicial interpretation of existing law. The site contains proceedings of all annual meetings (proceedings from before 1994 are in a separate database), study papers, discussion documents and a selection of uniform statutes recommended for enactment by the provinces, territories and sometimes the federal government. Uniform statutes that have been adopted are set out in tabular form.