statutory-research.html.pm

#lang pollen

◊define-meta[page-title]{Statutory research series}
◊define-meta[short-title]{Statutory research}
◊define-meta[original-date]{2021-07-24}
◊define-meta[edited-date]{2021-09-03}
◊define-meta[featured-image-url]{assets/1921-Bill-12.png}
◊define-meta[snippet]{How to research statutory evolution and legislative history of Canadian statutory law.}

◊declare-work[#:id "Barker" #:type "article" #:author "Susan Barker"
#:author2-given "Erica" #:author2-family "Anderson" #:title
"Cinderella at the Ball: Legislative Intent in Canadian Courts"
#:journal "Can Parl Rev" #:year "2015" #:volume "38" #:issue "2"
#:first-page "15" #:url
"http://www.revparlcan.ca/en/vol38-no2-cinderella-at-the-ball-legislative-intent-in-canadian-courts-2/"]

◊declare-work[#:id "Sullivan" #:type "book" #:author "Ruth Sullivan"
#:title "Sullivan on the Construction of Statutes" #:edition "5th"
#:publisher "LexisNexis" #:publisher-location "Markham, ON" #:year
"2008"]

◊declare-work[#:id "Agraira" #:type "legal-case" #:title "Agraira v. Canada
(Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness)" #:citation "2013 SCC 36"
#:url
"https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13137/index.do"
#:short-form "*Agraira*"]

◊declare-work[#:id "Safarzadeh-Markhali" #:type "legal-case" #:title
"R v Safarzadeh-Markhali" #:citation "2016 SCC 14" #:url
"https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/15860/index.do"]

◊declare-work[#:id "Swift Current" #:type "legal-case" #:title "Gary L
Redhead Holdings Ltd v Swift Current (Rural Municipality)" #:citation
"2017 SKCA 47" #:url
"https://www.canlii.org/en/sk/skca/doc/2017/2017skca47/2017skca47.html"]

Welcome to this short series on statutory research. I want to help you
research statutory evolution and legislative history of Canadian
statutory law.◊note{By ◊em{statutory evolution}, I mean the evolution
of an Act over time. Others call this ◊em{legislative evolution} (see
◊cite["Barker" #:terminal ""], citing ◊cite["Sullivan" #:pinpoint
"577" #:terminal ""]). By ◊em{legislative history}, I mean the record
of the legislative process that leads to an enacted statute. Beware
that other sources, including Canada's Supreme Court do not use these
terms consistently. ◊see-eg["Agraira" #:pinpoint "paras 66ff"
#:parenthetical "using the term “legislative history” to refer to how
a section of an act was amended over decades" #:terminal ";"]
◊cite["Safarzadeh-Markhali" #:pinpoint "para 36" #:parenthetical
"stating that they had “little evidence of the legislative evolution
of the challenged provision”"] ◊see-also["Swift Current" #:pinpoint
"paras 53--55" #:parenthetical "discussing the inconsistent usage of
the terms and a defence of distinguishing between the two"] And for
the meaning of ◊em{Act} and ◊em{statute}, read on!} This will allow
you to understand the content of an Act at any point in time and to
find out what legislators said about bills prior to their passage into
law.

By the end of this series, you should be able to do the following.

◊ol{
◊li{Identify the statutory sources of an Act and any amendments that have
occured to an Act throughout its history. That means finding the
statutes and bills from which the Act and any amendments to it arose.}

◊li{Find the legislative debates associated with those bills.}

◊li{Determine when the Act (or an amendment to it) came into force.}
}

This page will be a work-in-progress that I think will eventually
expand to four small modules. I will update this page as I complete
the material for each.

◊b{What this series omits, but I want you to be aware of, are methods
of research into Indigenous laws and legal traditions.} I have no
practical experience with those methods of research. In the series
developed on this page, you will see that even researching what Canada
has written down about its legislated law can be complicated. It is
all that more complex to research Indigenous law that may or may not
be in written form and that is in various stages of revitalization,
depending on the particular Indigenous nation. To learn more about
this, I recommend reading about the work of the [Indigenous Law
Research Unit](https://ilru.ca/) at the University of Victoria; a
[special issue of the McGill Law
Journal](https://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/issue/volume-61-issue-4-2016/)
on Indigenous law, legal orders, and traditions; and a collection of
essays edited by Michael Asch, John Borrows, and James Tully,
◊a[#:href
"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39653926-resurgence-and-reconciliation"]{◊em{Resurgence
and Reconciliation: Indigenous--Settler Relations and Earth
Teachings}}.

I also want to emphasize, especially for anyone coming to this series
who is not in law school, that ◊b{this is not how to figure out what
◊red{The Law} is}. It is only how to research one kind of material
that contributes to the development of Canadian law. Law is made in
many ways, in many sites, with various materials and through
relationships and human commitments to meanings. What the legislature
has chosen to declare through statute is only one part of how we
create legal meaning together.

Finally, before embarking on any of the research I describe in this
series, always check whether somebody else has done some of the work
for you. There may be a journal article, a court decision, or even a
Wikipedia article that outlines the rough statutory history of an
Act. But even if you use someone else’s work as a starting point, you
will often want to check their work for yourself: did they get every
date exactly right? did they miss any amendments? So whether you have
to start from scratch or if you are starting from someone else's work,
you’ll need to understand what I present in this series.

◊heading{Part 1: The materials}

This first Part covers the ◊em{materials} you will encounter during
this type of research. These materials are: bills, statutes, Acts
including amending Acts, Revised Statutes, official consolidations,
unofficial consolidations, and Hansard records. I will present these
all in this first Part. Another important source is the Canada Gazette
(and the provincial equivalents), but I will leave discussion of the
Gazettes until the final Part in this series.

Here are some rough descriptions of these materials I just mentioned.

◊b{A bill}: the piece of legislation that is developed in Parliament
(or a provincial legislature).◊note{Going forward, I will not
distinguish between Parliament and provincial legislatures unless
significant.} A bill is what the Parliament drafts, debates, amends,
and passes.◊note{A bill is often originally drafted by the executive
branch of government for introduction to Parliament.} A bill passed by
Parliament becomes an Act upon Royal Assent.◊note{This series will not
focus on the full internal process of what happens in Parliament, but
[here is a good discussion between Professor Craig Forcese and
Professor John Mark
Keyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRWyJddRIPU) on the legislative
process. See also ◊a[#:href
"https://www.ourcommons.ca/About/ProcedureAndPractice3rdEdition/ch_16_5-e.html"]{◊em{House
of Commons Procedure and Practice}}, 3rd ed (2017), Chapter 16: "The
Legislative Process."}

In Parliament, bills are labelled starting with a ◊em{C-} if they
originate in the House of Commons and they are labelled starting with
an ◊em{S-} if they originate in the Senate. Numbering starts over at
the beginning of each legislative session. Some Acts that gained notoriety prior
to their passage are often known by their bill number for quite some
time because this is how the media and commentators would have been
referring to them.

For example, in 2021, there was a [Bill
C-10](https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=10926636)
("An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make consequential
amendments to other Acts"). Look at some of the headlines: "Heritage
Minister asks senators to focus on passing Bill C-10," "Feds admit
Bill C-10 faces opposition across the country." These are ambiguous
without context, because there is a Bill C-10 in every session of
Parliament. See e.g. [Bill C-10 from the 43rd Parliament, 1st
Session](https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=8139986),
and [Bill C-10 from the 42nd Parliament, 1st
Session](https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=10687311).

◊b{Hansard}. ◊em{Hansard} refers to the record of what the legislature
did with and said about a bill during its progress through
Parliament.◊note{Named after the first official publisher of
Parliamentary debates in the British Parliament.}

◊b{A statute}. A statute is the written text of the Act as ultimately
enacted by Parliament. These are published in annual volumes entitled
◊em{Statutes of Canada} (or more simply, ◊em{Annual
Statutes}).◊note{Provinces have an equivalent.}

◊b{An Act} has a dual-meaning. It can refer to the enacted Bill (the
thing that receives Royal Assent and which is published as a statute
in the annual volume). It also refers to the evolving, abstract object
that gets amended over time. For example, the ◊em{Assisted Human
Reproduction Act} is the title of a statute that was passed in
2004. It has been amended since then and the name ◊em{Assisted Human
Reproduction Act} continues to refer to the current and changing
content of that Act.

◊b{Revised Statutes}. Several times in Canada's history (1886, 1906,
1927, 1952, 1970, 1985), Parliament has passed what are called
◊em{Revised Statutes}.◊note{An [explanatory
note](assets/RSC-1985-Explanatory-note.pdf) included in the Revised
Statutes of Canada, 1985, gives some helpful background to the
process. No revision process or output is identical. The Statute
Revision Commission has flexibility and discretion in how it
approaches its task. In a later Part, I will present in more detail
how to understand the 1985 revision and its supplements.} These are
when Parliament brings together all amendments that have occurred to
all the existing Acts over time and enacts an updated version of each
of those Acts. These updated versions incorporate directly into their
text the most up-to-date amended language. They are not intended to be
new law. They are only meant to consolidate and declare anew "the law
as contained in the Acts... for which the Revised Statutes are
substituted." The Revised Statutes have hundreds of chapters, one for
each Act that was in force at the time.

◊fig[#:src "assets/RSC-1985-TOC.png"]{The first page of the table of
contents of the 1985 Revised Statutes of Canada. Each Act that was in
force at the time gets its own chapter.}

In between the publication of Revised Statutes, you have to put
together the content of an Act by looking at all amendments that have
happened to an Act since its original passage or since the most recent
Revised Statute. But ◊em{consolidated} acts can help you with this.

◊b{Unofficial consolidations}, from providers like WestLaw, CanLii, or
Canada's Justice Laws website (prior to 2009) attempt to present what
the content of an Act is right now or at any point in time (going back
only so far, though). See e.g. ◊a[#:href
"https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/laws/stat/sbc-1953-c-55/latest/sbc-1953-c-55.html#history"]{CanLii's
unofficial consolidation(s) of the ◊em{Vancouver Charter} from 2008
until now}. These are generally helpful only for recent
decades. E.g. You won't find good unofficial consolidations for Acts
as they existed in 1925.

◊b{Official consolidations} (e.g. [Canada's Justice
Laws](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/) website since 2009)
provide authoritative evidence of the content of an Act is right now
or at at any point in time (again, only going back so far).◊note{This
[note from the Department of
Justice](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/ImportantNote/) explains
what changed in 2009.}

The decision to produce official revisions and/or consolidations and
the process for doing so differs between federal Parliament and
provincial legislatures and the practices have changed over time. In
this series, I will be focusing on the approach take by the federal
Parliament and the BC legislature. If you're doing work in another
province, these general principles should help you understand the
approach taken by your province, but you'll need to take some time to
understand the particular system(s) used in your jurisdiction.

◊sub-heading{An example: the ◊em{Copyright Act}}

For the rest of this Part, I will present a federal Act, the
◊em{Copyright Act}, and point out how all the materials I just
presented contribute to the product that we see today.

◊b{Today, an official consolidation}

First, to see the ◊em{Copyright Act} as it exists today, we can rely
on the ◊em{official consolidation} provided by Canada's Justice Laws
website. Here are direct links to the full, up-to-date content of the
Act as officially consolidated:
[HTML](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-42/FullText.html);
[PDF](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/C-42.pdf). It incorporates
the effects of all amendments that are in force.

◊b{Original}

While it is debatable what the "original" ◊em{Copyright Act} was, a
version with the structure that has lasted until today was passed in
1921.◊note{Its actual short title was ◊em{The Copyright Act,
1921}. The year was part of the name! This can get confusing,
especially since when referring to the Act as later amended, it would
still be called ◊em{The Copyright Act, 1921}. There were also
precursor ◊em{Copyright Act}s, but this was the first Act that pulled
all the parts together into a single Act.} It was published in the
annual volume ◊em{11--12 George V} in 1921,◊note{At this time, the
annual statutes were titled using the [regnal
year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnal_year).} and you can read it
[here](assets/SC-1921-c-24.pdf).

◊b{1985 official revised version}

The ◊em{Copyright Act} was around during Canada's most recent Revised
Statute project (1985), so it was included as a chapter there (chapter
C-42). You can read that chapter [here](assets/RSC-1985-C-42.pdf).

◊b{A 2012 amendment}

The ◊em{Copyright Act} has been amended many times between 1985 and
today, including in 2012 when Parliament made many changes to the fair
dealing user rights. The 2012 amending Act can be found in the [Annual
Statutes of Canada 2012, Chapter
20](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/index2012.html). Here
is its full text
([HTML](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/2012_20/FullText.html);
[PDF](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/2012_20.pdf)). It was
entitled the ◊em{Copyright Modernization Act} and went through
Parliament being known as Bill C-11. You can follow the [life of Bill
C-11 on
LegisInfo](https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=5134851),
including links to committee hearings and Hansard records.

◊b{◊em{Copyright Act} summary}

I showed you a very early version published in 1921. I skipped over
many amendments but showed you that the 1985 Revised Statutes included
the ◊em{Copyright Act} at Chapter C-42. And I showed you an amending
Act: developed as Bill C-11, published as a statute in the Annual
Statutes of 2012, the effects of which are now part of the current
official consolidation on the Justice Laws website.

◊sub-heading{Concluding Part 1}

In this Part, I have only introduced you to the materials involved in
statutory research and by example showed you some of the ways of
accessing them. You should know what a bill is; what a statute is; the
dual-meaning of the word ◊em{Act} and that Acts can evolve over time;
that governments may create official consolidations of Acts and that
the Parliament very occasionally creates Revised Statutes.

In my examples, I have mostly shown you the simplest, modern modes of
accessing these materials (e.g. the official consolidation;
Parliament’s LegisInfo portal which links together bills and Hansard
in a helpful way). Once you go back a bit further in time, it becomes
more complicated to identify the evolution of an Act over time and to
identify the associated statutes, bills, and Hansard records.

That is what I will share with you in the following Parts: how to
actually ◊em{find} these materials and various methods of research
that are effective across different eras.

◊heading{Part 2: Federal statutory evolution}

In this Part, I will show you how to use specific online resources to
discover the statutory material that has contributed to a federal Act.

This will involve the following resources:

◊itemize{

[Today's consolidated Acts at the Justice Laws website](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/).

[Annual
Statutes](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/index.html)
available online from 2001 onwards.

Annual Statutes from before 2001 are unfortunately more difficult to
access. If you are a student with access to your university's online
databases, you likely have access to HeinOnline and a database titled
"Annual Statutes." Here is the [direct
link](https://heinonline-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/HOL/Index?collection=caotp)
for those at UBC. If you do not have online access, most universities
also have the print volumes available.

Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985, and its supplements can be found in
PDF form ◊a[#:href
"https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/search/search.html?st=1&ssti=1&_ssti=on&ast=Revised+Statutes+of+Canada+1985&cnst=&_e=on&_f=on&adof=true&_adof=on&hpp=10&psi=1&rq.ssp=-5)"]{here,
on the Government of Canada's publication site}.

Revised statutes from before 1985 are more difficult to access. All
revised statutes (1886, 1906, 1927, 1952, 1970, 1985) are available
through HeinOnline, in a database titled "Revised Statutes of Canada."
Here is the [direct
link](https://heinonline-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/HOL/Index?index=castatutes/rdtutda&collection=castatutes)
if you're at UBC. Most university libraries will also have print
volumes of these.

}

To show you how to use these, I will work through an example. Let's
trace the size of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications
Commission (CRTC) throughout its history.

◊declare-work[#:id "CRTC" #:type "statute" #:title "Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act" #:volume "RSC"
#:year "1985" #:chapter "C-22" #:url
"https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-22/FullText.html"]

◊declare-work[#:id "mcgill" #:type "book" #:title "Canadian Guide to
Uniform Legal Citation" #:edition "9th" #:year "2018" #:publisher
"Thomson Reuters" #:publisher-location "Toronto" #:short-form "McGill
Guide"]

Section 3(1) of [today's official
consolidation](https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-22/FullText.html)
of the ◊em{CRTC Act}◊note{◊cite["CRTC" #:pinpoint "s 3(1)"] And a
small detail about citing statutes: when you cite a statute without
specifying a particular point in time, the convention is that you are
citing to the statute as it is amended at the time that your writing
is published. ◊see["mcgill" #:pinpoint "s 2.1.11"]} says the
following:

◊q{

There is established a commission, to be known as the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, consisting of not
more than 13 members, to be appointed by the Governor in Council.

}

Today, the CRTC can have at most thirteen members.

To trace this Section back through time, look to the [revision
annotation](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/FAQ/#g2) at the end of
the Section. I'll reproduce the revision annotation here, but it is
part of both the PDF and HTML views of the consolidated statute today:

◊q{
R.S., 1985, c. C-22, s. 3; 1991, c. 11, s. 76; 2010, c. 12, s. 1701.
}

This annotation tells us that Section 3 was amended in 2010 and
1991. It also tells us that Section 3 was most recently enacted in
full in the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985. This does not mean that
this Section ultimately originated in 1985. The Revised Statutes of
Canada will provided a further revision annotation if there is history
prior to 1985. But for now, we know that we need to examine at least
the following sources:

◊itemize{

SC 2010, c 12, s 1701 (Annual Statutes of Canada 2010, Chapter 12, Section 1701);

SC 1991, c 11, s 76 (Annual Statutes of Canada 1991, Chapter 11,
Section 76);

RSC 1985, c C-22, s 3 (Revised Statutes of Canada 1985, Chapter C-22, Section 3).

}

Before we dive into what the ◊em{CRTC Act} looked like after each of
those revisions/amendments, let's keep tracing the history backward
from 1985. For this, we need to go to the Revised Statutes of Canada,
1985, Chapter C-22, Section 3. Find it from the Government of Canada
◊a[#:href
"https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/search/search.html?st=1&ssti=1&_ssti=on&ast=Revised+Statutes+of+Canada+1985&cnst=&_e=on&_f=on&adof=true&_adof=on&hpp=10&psi=1&rq.ssp=-5)"]{here}
or through UBC's HeinOnline database
[here](https://heinonline-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/HOL/Index?index=castatutes/rdtutda&collection=castatutes).

RSC 1985 is huge: seven volumes and several supplements. I always go
to [the
index](https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/lois-statutes/YX44-1985%20X1991-eng.pdf)
first to figure out in which volume I'll find the chapter that I
want. It says Chapter C-22 is in [Volume
II](https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/lois-statutes/YX44-1985%202.pdf). There,
you'll find the ◊em{CRTC Act} as it was "revised"◊note{Recall that
these periodic ◊em{revisions} are not intended to change the law, but
instead only consolidate and declare anew "the law as contained in the
Acts... for which the Revised Statutes are substituted."} in 1985.

◊fig[#:src "assets/RSC-1985-C-22-s-1.png"]{The opening of the ◊em{CRTC
Act} as revised in 1985.}

◊fig[#:src "assets/RSC-1985-C-22-s-3.png"]{Section 3 of the ◊em{CRTC
Act} as revised in 1985.}

Here, we find that Section 3 does in fact point back further in time,
to a citation that looks a little strange: ◊tt{1974-75-76, c. 49,
s. 3}. Before 1983, a volume of the Statutes of Canada would sometimes
span several years when a session of Parliament spanned several
years. That seems to no longer be the practice. In any case, since
this is before 2001, there is no easily accessible, online source for
this volume. I access it through HeinOnline. Again, the direct link
for those at UBC is
[here](https://heinonline-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/HOL/Index?collection=caotp).

◊fig[#:src "assets/SC-1974-76-c-49-s-3.png"]{Section 3 of the original ◊em{CRTC
Act}, enacted in 1975.}

There is no revision annotation at the end of Section 3, so this is
where our tracing ends.

◊b{A point of caution}: while this is all correct regarding the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission under the
◊em{Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act},
there was a predecessor commission named the Canadian Radio and
Television Commission created by the ◊em{Broadcasting Act} in
1968. This would have become apparent through researching secondary
sources and Hansard. If I were doing this research for real, I would
want to understand what that previous commission looked like and
whether Parliament intended the new CRTC to be like the old CRTC.

To summarize, the entire history of Section 3 of the ◊em{CRTC Act} is
captured by:

◊itemize{

SC 1974-75-76, c 49, s 3;

RSC 1985, c C-22, s 3;

SC 1991, c 11, s 76;

SC 2010, c 12, s 1701.

}

When did the Commission change size? Upon initial creation and in
1985, the Commission was made up of up to nine full-time members and
ten part-time members. Today, it is made up of no more than thirteen
members. Did that change happen in 1991? Or did it happen in 2010? To
discover this, we need to look at the Statutes of Canada in 1991 and
2010.

For the 1991 amendment, I need to rely on HeinOnline again (the
[direct
link](https://heinonline-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/HOL/Index?collection=caotp)
for UBC people). Statutes of Canada 1991, Chapter 11 was in fact a new
◊em{Broadcasting Act} with the structure that we see today. It also
included "related and consequential amendments" to related Acts,
including an amendment to the size of the CRTC.◊note{I would take some
time to look closely at the structure of SC 1991, c 11. Sections 1
through 71 become the substantive content of the ◊em{Broadcasting
Act}. Sections 72 and onward are quite different. Sections 72 and
onward mostly repeal, amend, or replace various sections of other
Acts. In particular, Section 76 is the Section that amends the
◊em{CRTC Act} to change the size of the CRTC.}

◊fig[#:src "assets/SC-1991-c-11-s-75-77.png"]{This is Section 76 of
Chapter 11 of the Annual Statutes of Canada, 1991. Section 76 is
actually an ◊em{amendment} to Section 3 of the existing ◊em{CRTC Act}.}

Section 76 changes the composition of the CRTC. This amendment changes
four of the part-time positions into full-time positions. After this
amendment, the CRTC consists of "not more than thirteen full-time
members and not more than six part-time members."

For the 2010 amendment, we can use the [Annual Statutes published on
the Justice Laws
website](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/index2010.html). [Chapter
12](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/2010_12/) (the
◊em{Jobs and Economic Growth Act}) is a monster Act. It has over
two-thousand individual sections. But we are only interested in
[Section
1701](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/2010_12/page-75.html#h-87). There,
we see that the ◊em{CRTC Act} was amended to read as it does today:
"not more than 13 members" and no mention of part-time
members. Section 1702 amends Section 4 of the ◊em{CRTC Act} to say
that all members are full-time members: "A member shall devote the
whole of his or her time to the performance of his or her duties under
this Act."

◊sub-heading{Enactment does not imply in force}

So far, I have only shown you how to find the statutory material that
has contributed to the content of the Act. What I haven't shown you,
and what I am postponing until a later Part, is how to determine when
these amendments actually come into force. The CRTC didn't suddenly
lose its part-time members when the ◊em{Jobs and Economic Growth Act}
received Royal Assent.

◊sub-heading{Concluding Part 2}

In this Part, through example, I showed you how to trace the content
of a federal Act back through time by following the revision
annotations found at the end of any Section. This allows you to find
the statutory material that has contributed to an Act. Here are the
important things you should understand now.

A revised statute (as was done in 1985) is a fresh starting point for
any Act. Revised statutes are massive, and you should start with the
table of contents or index.

In the past, "annual" statutes sometimes spanned several years.

An Act can have multiple purposes. The 1991 ◊em{Broadcasting Act}, for
instance, created the substantive structure and content of today's
◊em{Broadcasting Act} and also made amendments to related Acts.

Unless you supplement your statutory research with secondary sources
and Hansard, you may miss large parts of the picture: e.g. the
CRTC◊note{The Canadian Radio and Television Commission.} that existed
before today's CRTC.◊note{The Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission.}

◊heading{Part 3: Federal legislative history}

In this Part I will show you how to find the ◊em{legislative history}
of these amendments. What did members or Senators say about ◊em{why}
they were changing the size of the CRTC? What was presented in
committee? Were there any amendments to the bill as it worked its way
through Parliament? Hansard and related records can help answer these
questions. I'll show you how to do this work with a historic bill and
then with a modern bill, as the resources available to do this
research change over time.

◊itemize{

Research into the legislative history of modern bills---from the 37th
Parliament (2001) onward---is made fairly straightforward through the
[LEGISinfo](https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/Home.aspx) site. For modern
bills from 2001 onward, the entire legislative history is organized on
LEGISinfo with convenient links to the relevant Hansard and committee
records.

From 1994--2000, LEGISinfo provides much less information about each
bill and doesn't link to the relevant Hansard and committee
records. Nonetheless, through a mix of LEGISinfo and the separate
Hansard and committee-record sites, material from 1994--2000 is still
pretty well retrievable directly from Parliament: [House
Hansard](https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-2/house/sitting-123/hansard),
[House committees](https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/Home),
[Senate Hansard](https://sencanada.ca/en/in-the-chamber/debates),
[Senate committees](https://sencanada.ca/en/Committees/). It just
takes a little more exploring on your part.

For bills from before 1994, you will have to use the [Canadian
Parliamentary Historical Resources](https://parl.canadiana.ca/), with
bills, Hansard, and committee records going as far back as the first
Parliament. These require a lot of manual searching through large
PDFs.

}

The general steps are the same across all era, but the particular
resources that you'll use change.

Steps:

◊ol{

◊li{Identify the bill that led to the statute.}

◊li{Use Hansard to locate the Bill's readings, referral to committee,
committee records, and report(s).}

}


◊sub-heading{Historic (pre-1994) bills}

Let's first do this the hard way. What did Parliament have to say
about the 1991 change?◊note{As presented above, SC 1991, c 11, s 76
amended the ◊em{CRTC Act} to convert four of the CRTC's part-time
positions into full-time positions.}

In this case, the table of contents of the Statutes of Canada 1991
tells us that Chapter 11 went through Parliament as Bill C-40. It
received Royal Assent on February 1, 1991. This information will help
us to locate information about the Bill in Hansard.

Use the [Canadian Parliamentary Historical
Records](https://parl.canadiana.ca/browse?show=eng_c_debates) to
browse to the House of Commons Debates for the time period associated
with that particular Bill C-40. That would be the [34th Parliament,
2nd Session (spanning April 3, 1989 to May 12,
1991)](https://parl.canadiana.ca/browse/eng/c/debates/34-2). Then, go
to the
[index](https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC3402_20/1?r=0&s=1)
of those debates to gather the list of pages that you'll need to look
at. [Here is page 94 of the
index](https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC3402_20/114?r=0&s=1),
where it lists ◊b{Broadcasting Act (Bill C-40)} along with the pages
for its first reading, second reading, referral to committee, report
stage and associated motions, third reading, notification of Senate
passage, and Royal Assent.

◊fig[#:src
"assets/hansard-34th-parl-2nd-sess-index-broadcasting-act.png" #:width "400px"]{A
portion of the Hansard index that directs you to the relevant pages
for Bill C-40.}

I would first jump to pages 5546--65 and 7003--14. Second reading is
the main debate over the general purpose of a bill. The bill's sponsor
will present the motivations, people will speak for and against the
general thrust and implications of the bill. Clause-by-clause
criticism isn't a main focus at this stage, but it is still a very
important stage of a bill's journey through Parliament.

The [House debates for this
session](https://parl.canadiana.ca/browse/eng/c/debates/34-2) are
split across fourteen volumes. You can poke around by trial-and-error
to determine which of the volumes contains the pages of interest, or
you can look to the index, which reports the pages contained in each
volume. Once you've located the appropriate volume, you can use the
web viewer to browse page-by-page or use the search function. You can
also download the full PDF if you prefer to use your own PDF software.

At Second Reading, I did not find anything directly discussing change
in composition of the CRTC, but [at page
5564](https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC3402_04/1272?r=0&s=1),
Jim Edwards (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications)
says that the bill "strengthens the ability of the [CRTC] to regulate
and supervise the broadcasting system" and that it will make "the CRTC
more efficient, more responsive to Canadians."

To see whether the change in composition was considered in committee,
we need to determine which committee this bill was referred to. [At
page 7014 of the House
Hansard](https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC3402_05/1258?r=0&s=1),
it merely tells us that the House agreed to the motion to read the
bill a second time and to refer it to "a legislative committee"
(rather than naming a standing committee). This suggests that there
was a committee created specifically to consider this one bill. You
can [browse the committee
records](https://parl.canadiana.ca/browse?show=eng_c_committees_34)
and locate the records from the [Legislative Commitee on Bill
C-40](https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.com_HOC_3402_10_1/1?r=0&s=1).

This is a massive volume, including evidence submitted to the
committee by interested parties across Canada, debates among committee
members, line-by-line consideration of the bill, etc. I used the
search function to search for the term ◊em{"full-time"} (in quotes).

◊itemize{

On January 2, 1990, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and
Radio Artists presented to the committee a report that said "the
increase in the number of full-time commissioners [◊ellipsis should] assist
the CRTC to make efficient decisions."

On February 14, 1990, David C. Coville (Senior Director, Department of
Transportation and Communications, Province of Nova Scotia) said, "we
wish to reiterate our support for the provisions in the legislation
allowing for the appointment of full-time commissioners who would
reside in the regions they represent, increasing the number of
full-time commissioners from 9 to 13 ◊ellipsis the cumulative effect of
these provisions will be a more efficient, effective, and regionally
sensitive commission."

}

I would go further if I were doing this research for real, but that is
the kind of information you can find out of the committee
reports. These statements don't necessarily reflect legislative
intent, but do reveal context that was available to Parliament. The
clause that changed the composition of the CRTC was not amended by the
committee nor discussed at the report stage. I would complete this
research by repeating all of the above for the Senate records.

◊sub-heading{Modern (post-1994) bills}

This only gets easier as you move towards the present-day. Instead of
searching through text extracted from PDF scans, you get to seach
directly in the raw text of the materials, and the Parliament websites
organize and link the material together in a much more helpful way.

On my next update of this post, I will present a short example of how
to do this research on a modern bill. That will complete this Part on
federal legislative history.