Canada

Researching Canadian law

Research and resource guide for Canada, by Kim Nayyer, covering print and online sources of law and legal materials. Published on New York University's Globalex website and updated periodically, it gives overview of the Canadian legal system and provides background information and sources of Canadian legislation and case law. There is guidance to law schools and the legal profession and to secondary literature including journals, books, directories and legal dictionaries. A separate section deals with legal research in Quebec.

Uniform Law Conference of Canada

Website for the body responsible for promoting legislative review and harmonisation in Canadian statute law. The site offers a history of the Conference with texts of its constitution and by-laws, supported by a bibliography of books and journal articles commenting on its work. Contact details for the present Executive Committee and past presidents are provided. Proceedings of Annual Meetings are available from 1918 onwards when the Conference was created.

Indigenous Law Centre of Canada

Website of the Indigenous Law Centre of Canada (formerly the Native Law Centre) at the University of Saskatchewanan, which is dedicated to the study and development of indigenous law in Canada. The work of the Centre involves running educational programs, conducting research and developing publications with the aim of assisting in the formulation of policy and justice in the areas of Aboriginal rights in Canada and around the world.

Canadian Environmental Law Association

The Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA consists of lawyers and researchers who have expertise in environmental law and policy and who campaign for better environmental law for Ontario and Canada. CELA's project areas cover access to justice, pollution and health, land use and water sustainability. There are online collections of materials focusing on particular subject areas including mining and renewable energy in Ontario. The site includes organisational information on CELA details of CELA's involvement in environmental litigation.

Corporate and Insolvency Law Policy Directorate

Web page describing the law reform initiatives of Canada's Corporate and Insolvency Law Policy Directorate (CILPD), which is responsible for reviewing Canada's business and insolvency laws, regulations and policies. The CILPD forms part of the Marketplace Framework Policy Branch of Industry Canada. The site publishes a number of consultation documents, questionnaires and background research documents on subjects such as bankruptcy and insolvency law, corporate not-for-profit law and Canada's law on cooperatives. A list of the legislation currently under review is published.

Canada Industrial Relations Board

Website for the Canada Industrial Relations Board, formed in 1999, and replacing the former Canada Labour Relations Board. The CIRB is an independent quasi-judicial tribunal responsible for the interpretation and administration of Part I (Industrial Relations) and certain provisions of Part II (Occupational Safety and Health) of the Canada Labour Code. The site is available in English and French, and includes a database of summaries of the Board's decisions passed to date in HTML format.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Website presenting the text of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, included on the official site of the Department of Justice Canada. The Charter is an important statement of human rights policy and is enacted as Schedule B to the Constitution Act 1982 (1982, c.79). In the UK, the Charter is Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (1982, c.11). The Charter is presented on the site in English and French language versions in HTML format.

Canadian Legal Information Institute

The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) provides free access to a comprehensive range of Canadian primary and secondary legal materials, including federal and provincial laws as amended and as passed, case law, books, articles and reports. The service was created jointly by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and LexUM, the computer law research team at the University of Montreal. The site is available in both English and French, the official languages of Canada.

Canadian Human Rights Tribunal

Website for the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal available in English and French. The Tribunal applies the rights of equality, equal opportunity, fair treatment, and non-discrimination to cases referred to it by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The site provides a database of decisions from 1979 onwards in full-text HTML format. The decisions can be searched by year or by complainant's name, and a free-text search engine is available which searches the content of the whole site.

British Columbia Law Institute

Website of the British Columbia Law Institute, based in Vancouver, Canada. The Institute was set up in 1997 and aims to promote the clarification of the law and its adaptation to modern social needs. The site contains background information on the Institute and includes the full-text (PDF) of its by-laws, completed reports and details of active law reform projects. Publications of the British Columbia Law Reform Commission from 1969 to 1997 can also be downloaded from the site in full in HTML, RTF or Word Perfect. A set of links to other law reform agencies is available.

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