Locating Territorial Legislation

My library is frequently asked what the best tools are for legislative research in the territories. For provincial legislation (with the exception of British Columbia*) CanLII tends to be our resource of first choice. When it comes to the consolidated legislation for the territories, the situation is a little trickier. Free consolidated legislation is not available for all territorial legislation, so in some cases it may be easiest to go straight to the paid source.

The following is a list of the resources available for finding territorial legislation. Please note that in some cases a completely up-to-date consolidation may not be available and that you will have to finish updating the legislation manually.

Northwest Territories

Of the three territories, the Northwest Territories has the most up-to-date legislation available online; the consolidated acts and regulations on the Department of Justice’s website are current to May 19, 2010 (as of August 6, 2010). 

As CanLII downloads its legislation from the government site the consolidations found on its website are also current to May 19, 2010. A very useful feature of CanLII is that it indicates in the version history if there have been changes even when a consolidated version that incorporates those changes is not available. For example, if you look at the NWT Business Corporations Act on CanLII, you will see that the last version that CanLII has covers the period between Aug 1, 2009 and May 19, 2010, but that there is a subsequent consolidated version that came into force on May 20, 2010. The version history on CanLII looks like this:

8. since May 20, 2010 (missing)

7. between Aug 1, 2009 and May 19, 2010 (past)

6. between Jun 4, 2009 and Jul 31, 2009 (missing)

5. between Oct 26, 2008 and Jun 3, 2009 (past)

4. between Nov 2, 2006 and Oct 25, 2008 (past)

3. between Oct 27, 2005 and Nov 1, 2006 (past)

2. between Oct 29, 2004 and Oct 26, 2005 (past)

1. between Mar 13, 2003 and Oct 28, 2004 (past)

In order to determine what the changes are, you will need to bring the statute up to date manually. As an alternative, you can go to one of the paid sources and see if they have an up-to-date version of the statute. 

Both Quicklaw and Westlaw Canada have consolidated versions of Northwest Territories legislation but these versions are not always completely up-to-date. These services try to have legislation that is current to within four to eight weeks of today’s date. Both Quicklaw and Westlaw Canada indicate the currency of the legislation at the top of the webpage. 

You may also find a consolidated version of a statute on other paid resources. For example, CCH Online has consolidated territorial legislation for specific areas (e.g. business corporations, labour and employment).

Yukon

The Yukon legislation that can be found on the official government website has not been consolidated at all. What the website does provide is a link to the original act along with links to any amending acts. Yukon’s Table of Public Statutes lists all the changes and is updated four times a year with the last update on March 31, 2010. The Regulations of the Yukon are consolidated four times per year, with a table listing any changes between updates. 

Unlike the NWT legislation, CanLII does not have consolidated versions of the legislation. However it does allow you to see when there were changes to the legislation. For example, CanLII’s version history for the Children’s Act reads:

4. since Apr 30, 2010 (missing)

3. between May 15, 2008 and Apr 29, 2010 (missing)

2. between May 2, 2005 and May 14, 2008 (missing)

1. between Jan 1, 2003 and May 1, 2005 (past)

Both Quicklaw and Westlaw Canada have Yukon legislation; this is probably the easiest way to obtain a consolidated copy of a Nunavut statute.

Nunavut

Nunavut has a number of consolidated versions of acts on its website. Unfortunately not all of the legislation of Nunavut is available as an up-to-date consolidation, and of those consolidated versions, not all of them are current. For those acts that have been consolidated, the Department of Justice has helpfully noted any amending acts that have not been included in the consolidation so users can consult the Annual Statutes online to see what the changes are. It is considerably more difficult to determine how those acts which have not been included in the consolidations now read, as the Table of Public Acts of Nunavut only goes up to December 31, 2004.

CanLII’s coverage of Nunavut legislation is based on what Nunavut has on its website. For example, a consolidated version of the Nunavut Commercial Tenancies Act is not available on the government website. CanLII has a copy of the version that was in place until March 22, 2010, along with a note that they are missing the consolidated version of the Act that came into effect March 23, 2010. Knowing that the act changed on March 23, 2010 we can either go straight to a paid source for a consolidation, or we could scan through the 2010 Annual Statutes to find that section 9 of the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2010, S.Nu. 2010, c. 4 amended this act. 

Quicklaw currently does not have any Nunavut legislation although this may change in the future. Westlaw Canada is therefore the best choice for finding consolidated versions of Nunavut legislation. Note that Westlaw Canada does not have all Nunavut regulations, but does include all “key” Nunavut regulations and all new regulations since January 2008.

Citation of Nunavut acts can also lead to some confusion. When Nunavut came into being in 1999 it adopted the statutes of the Northwest Territories, and those adopted statutes are cited R.S.N.W.T. or S.N.W.T. (Statutes that came into being post-1999 are cited S.Nu.) All amendments prior to April 1, 1999 were also adopted. However because amendments subsequent to April 1, 1999 are specific to the territory, a Northwest Territories act may not read the same as a Nunavut act with an identical name and almost identical citation. For example, the Northwest Territories Business Corporations Act, cited S.N.W.T. 1996, c. 19 reads differently from the Nunavut Business Corporations Act, which CanLII cites S.N.W.T. (Nu.) 1996, c. 19. ** 

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* We subscribe to a couple of B.C. specific resources, QP LegalEze and Quickscribe.

** The McGill guide uses the longer citation of “ Business Corporations Act, S.N.W.T. 1996, c. 19, as duplicated for Nunavut by s. 29 of the Nunavut Act, S.C. 1993, c. 28″