CRIM 1160 & 2260: Primary Legal Sources: Finding Legislation (Statutes, Regulations, Bills)

Statutes & Regulations (Free)                                            

There are several ways to access federal statutes and regulations online.

• Consolidated Statutes and Regulations. The Department of Justice provides online access to the Consolidated Statutes and Regulations on its Justice Laws website. As of June, 2009, this version is considered to be "official", which means that the statutes linked to this site may be used for evidentiary purposes. These statutes are generally updated every two weeks. 
   
• CanLII (which is funded by Canadian law societies and foundations) also provides free access to Canadian statutes and regulations. For British Columbia, the consolidated statutes, regulations and annual statutes are updated weekly from the BC Laws.   

Bills (Free)

• LEGISinfo. Proposed statutes or amendments to existing statutes are presented to the House of Commons, Senate or legislature as bills. Bills of both the Canadian Senate and the House of Commons are available through LEGISinfo.

Statutes & Regulations (Free)   

There is no "official" online version of the Statutes of British Columbia. The official version is only available in print through the BC government's King's Printer. However, online versions are available for private study and research.

• BC Laws, under the direction of the King's Printer, provides free public access to the current laws of British Columbia. This unofficial, but current consolidation of the statutes and regulations of BC is updated every seven to 14 days. 
   
• CanLII's Statutes and Regulations of British Columbia. The statutes and regulations in CanLII are updated using information from BC Laws, and so are not completely current. However, for the purposes of study and research at Douglas College, both BC Laws and CanLII's Statutes and Regulations of British Columbia are extremely useful resources.

Bills (Free)

• Legislative Assembly of British Columbia provides access to BC's provincial bills. As with federal bills, each provincial bill must pass three readings in the BC legislative assembly and receive royal assent before it is passed into law.

Statutes & Regulations  

(Fee based: Free for students / faculty of Douglas College)                             

The most current version of the statutes and regulations of Canada is in the fee-based Quicklaw database. Douglas College Library has a subscription to Quicklaw, so there is no charge to students or faculty to use the online database. However, you'll need to log in with your CNA login to use it from off campus locations.  

Quicklaw allows for some fairly sophisticated searching. Searching tips and resources on Quicklaw can be found at the top right hand corner of the search field under Search Tips.

Statutes & Regulations 

(Fee based; Free for students / faculty of Douglas College) 

Like the statutes and regulations of Canada, the most current version of the statutes and regulations of British Columbia is in the fee-based Quicklaw database. 

Douglas College Library has a subscription to Quicklaw, so there is no charge to students or faculty to use the database. You will need to log in with your CNA login to use them for free from off campus locations.