Find Legislation: Canada

• Legislation is law enacted by government. It takes the form of a written document.
• In many countries, including Canada and the United States, there are two types of laws: primary legislation and secondary legislation.

Primary legislation

• Created by legislative bodies (such as Parliament or Congress)
• Also called a statue or act
• Sets out the broad principles and framework of the law
• Known as a bill prior to approval by a country’s legislative body

Secondary legislation

• Created by bodies, other than the legislative body, that have been delegated that authority by the primary legislation
• Those bodies are often, but not always, government agencies or departments
• Also known as delegated legislation, subordinate legislation, or regulation
• Sets out specific rules under the authority of the primary legislation that authorizes it

• All Canadian federal acts and regulations are available online on the Justice Laws Website.
• If you know the name of the act or regulation, you can search for it or browse an alphabetical list.
• If you don’t know the name of the act or regulation, you can search by keyword using Basic Search or Advanced Search.
• The text of all federal acts and regulations is also available on the CanLII website.
• The text of bills, along with their status, is available online at LEGISinfo.
• Bills receive numbers based on their chronological order of introduction and the chamber (Senate or House of Commons) in which they are introduced. They also have names, e.g. C-277: An Act for providing for the development of a framework on palliative care in Canada.
• Search for bills by bill number, title, or keyword search of title and content. Try the advanced search for even more powerful searching abilities.

• The text of all provincial and territorial legislation is available on the CanLII website.
• Search CanLII by keyword across all provinces and territories, by keyword in a specific province or territory, or browse each province and territory’s alphabetical list.
• You can also find each province’s and territory’s official website for legislation by searching Google for <jurisdiction name> legislation, e.g. Ontario legislation.

• Legislation enacted by a municipality is called a by-law.
• You can find each municipality’s official by-laws website by searching Google for <municipality name> by-laws, e.g. Guelph by-laws.