Legislative Process House of Commons Senate Committees Cabinet and Members of Parliament Judicial Statistics Other Sources
The House of Commons spends a great deal of time debating and voting on bills and is considered the major law-making body of Parliament. The House is solely responsible for introducing any bill that either collects or spends public funds. Government bills that are introduced in the House of Commons are prefixed with the letter "C" and are numbered consecutively from -1 to -200, while private Members' bills are numbered consecutively from -201 to -1000. The Senate or "Upper House" is appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister. Senators lack the power of initiating financial legislation. Senate bills are prefixed with the letter "S" and private bills mostly introduced by the Senate are numbered at 1001 and higher. Current Canadian House and Senate bills maybe found at the Parliament Website. The path a Canadian bill is as follows:
LEGISInfo is a Website used to search Canadian House or Senate bills. Includes Government bills, and Private Members' Public bills for the House of Commons and is searchable from the 37th Parliament (2001) to the present.
Consolidated Acts and Regulations provides simple and advanced search options of current laws and regulations of the Canadian government. This site also provides links to several important resources for case law, bills, regulations, reference documents, income tax law, and frequently accessed statutes.
Canada Gazette is the official newspaper of the Canadian government and publishes notices and proposed regulations, official egulations, and Acts of Parliament.
How a Government Bill Becomes a Law-Canada is a resource for depository libraries that gives more detail to the legislative process.
About Bills describes the five types of bills that can be introduced. This also describes the Legislative Summaries that are prepared by the Parliamentary Research Branch.
House Documents that are available online include the following documents from the 35th Parliament (1994) forward. The House publishes a number of information sources including: Debates, Journals, Projected Order of Business, Order Paper & Notice Paper, Status of House Business. There are also Committee Reports and Bills. The documents defined below are the government publications that are produced and available at the House of Commons Website:
Senate documents that are available online include Debates, Journals, Order Paper and Notice Paper, Progress of Legislation, Committee Reports, and Bills. These are generally available online from the 35th Parliament (1994) to the present. The following descriptions are for documents that are available online:
House, Senate, and Joint Committees
Committee documents come in the form of reports, hearings, or responses to legislation or investigations. There are two main types of committees: Standing Committees, which are permanent and Special Committees, which are created for a specified amount of time. The committees usually deal with a specific subject or issue (i.e. Agriculture and Forestry, Human Rights, Transportation and Communication).
House of Commons Committees produce reports and responses to legislature. The Website provides the standing committee list, notice of meetings, evidence and witness information, news releases, and documents searchable by subject.
Senate Committees produce reports and publications on legislation and special issues. The Website has a list of Standing and Special Committees, a schedule of meetings, Reports and Publications. The site is archived for the 35th Parliament (1994) to present.
Joint Committees of the House of Commons and the Senate. Links to reports and responses, notice of meetings, witness information, and committee lists.
Cabinet, and Members of Parliament
Members of Parliament gives current and historical lists of the members and links to sites containing contact information, membership to caucuses and committees, former and current government roles, and previous election results.
Canadian Ministry (Cabinet) gives current and historical list of the members of the Cabinet and links to contact information, membership to caucuses and committees, former and current government roles, and previous election results.
Prime Minister of Canada presents press releases, lays out the government agenda, advertises special government programs, and links to issues of public concern.
Supreme Court of Canada contains information about the court, acts and rules, cases, and access to the Supreme Court's Library catalogue.
Judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada provides a comprehensive list of court decisions from 1985 to present and some cases pertaining to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1983 and 1984. This database is a collaboration of the Supreme Court and the LexUM Lab at the University of Montreal.
Federal Court of Appeals provides information about the court and the current business of the court. There is a searchable database of the decisions of the Federal Court of Appeals for 1989 and 1996 to 2007.
Federal Court of Canada is the national trial court of Canada and hears disputes arising in the federal domain, claims against the Government of Canada, and suits in federally regulated areas. There is a database of the Court's decisions (1990, 1991, and 1995 to 2007) and the Court's files including hearings lists and the dockets.
Canadian Legal Information Institute is a database that is searchable for case law at the federal and provincial level. Searchable by date, full text key word, title/name, and among legislative, courts and boards/tribunals.
Statistics Canada is a comprehensive Website for Canadian statistics and includes searching by subject, summary tables, community profiles, census data, and maps and geography. Canadian Census occurs every five years and data is available online for 1996, 2001, and 2006.
Census of Canada contains data for the Agriculture and Population Censuses for 1996, 2001, and 2006.
Search Page for Statistics Canada allows for advanced search options within the statistics database and categorizes the results under types of data i.e. summary tables, analytical studies, detailed tables and publications
Finding and Using Statistics is a research guide and step-by-step review for locating, reading and using the appropriate data from the Statistics Canada Website.
Historical Statistics of Canada provides a indexed list of sections and subsections for the historical data. The majority of the statistics are from the early to mid-20th century and available in PDF and html files.
Canadian Economic Statistics Research Guide is provided by the University of Alberta Libraries and is a comprehensive guide to Canadian Economic Statistics.
Library of Parliament is made up of the Information and Research Service, which produces research publications for Parliament and catalogs documents that are indexed and searchable by subject category. The Library of Parliament also includes the Information and Document Resource Service, which responds to questions and provides requests for articles.
Depository Services Program is the official government site for Canadian depository libraries. It offers a wealth of information: weekly checklist of documents; a catalogue for searching documents; electronic publications that are searchable by corporate author, title and subject; a list of depository libraries worldwide; and further guides and help sheets.
Info Source Publications is a series of publications detailing information about the government of Canada, its organization and information holdings. A great research tool for finding information and understanding the organization of information in the Canadian government and for getting information through the Access to Information Act.
Government of Canada Web Archive is a website by the Library and Archives of Canada that harvests and preserves Webpages of the federal government of Canada.
Justice and Law in Canada provides an integrated resource of reference sources dealing with the Canadian justice system, legislation, the courts, law enforcement and other public justice institutions.
Canadian Parliamentary Publications: A Research Guide is an extensive guide to the Parliamentary process and the associated documents. This Website is done by the University of Toronto.
Structure of the Government of Canada lays out the national political positions including the Sovereign, the Governor General, Parliament, and Cabinet. The page also has links to the legislative, regulatory, and case law for the Canadian government.
Departments and Agencies provides an alphabetical list of direct links to the primary Websites of the Government of Canada departments, agencies, and Crown corporations.
About Parliament is a quick reference guide to the historical Parliament building and the people, Parliamentary process, education, photographs, and an A-Z index.
Provincial and Territorial Governments is a Website containing the official links to Canada's provincial and territorial governments.
Provincial and Territorial Legislatures is a Website containing the official links to the legislatures of Canada's provinces and territories.
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