Department of Justice Laws Site

The Legislative Services Branch is in the process of updating certain files on the Justice Laws Web site (the Table of Public Statutes and Responsible Ministers, the Consolidated Index of Statutory Instruments and the Table of Private Acts). We hope to have these updated files available by mid June.

However, it should be noted that there will be no updating of the consolidated statutes and regulations, as the Branch is changing its technical environment for the processing of legislation. The new environment will allow for more regular and timely updating of the Acts and regulations on our public Web site; we will no longer be limited to updating only after certain cut-off dates three times a year as has been the case in the past. The new environment will also permit point-in-time access to Acts and regulations, from a given date onwards. The changeover to the new technical environment is complex and will take some time to complete.

In the meantime, the Acts and regulations on the Web site are current to August 31, 2004. To determine if an Act or a regulation, or one of its provisions, has been amended since that date (many will not have been amended), users should consult the Table of Public Statutes and Responsible Ministers (current to April 30, 2005) or the Consolidated Index of Statutory Instruments (current to March 31, 2005), paper copies of which are now available and electronic versions of which will be accessible on the Web site by mid June, as indicated above. (Note that the most recent issue of the Consolidated Index of Statutory Instruments is accessible on the Canada Gazette website at http://canadagazette.gc.ca/index-e.html.)

For the actual text of any new or amending Acts enacted after August 31, 2004, users can view individual assented to Acts on the Parliament of Canada website at www.parl.gc.ca/LEGISINFO. For the text of new and amending regulations, users can consult the individual issues of the Canada Gazette, Part II, available on line at http://canadagazette.gc.ca/index-e.html.

The Laws site is available at: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/index.html