Canadian Legal Research Manual

Finding a bill is a common legal research task. For example:

• Searching for bills is a key part of updating statutes to check for recent amendments that have not yet been integrated into the face of a statute on a government's website.
• You may need to find bills that have amended a statute in the past.
• There may be a relevant bill to your legal research task and you need to determine whether it has come into force. 

This page includes information on how to research federal and Ontario bills. For other provinces or territories, see Other Canadian Jurisdictions (on this page).

►See Types of Bills for more information on different types of bills and bill numbering. 

The following drop downs provide information on how to find federal bills (on LEGISinfo) and Ontario bills (on the Legislative Assembly website). 

No matter the jurisdiction, it is crucial to determine the status of the bill you are viewing.

Bills that have received Royal Assent may or may not have the force of law, regardless of whether they have been consolidated into the government's online legislative consolidation. Always check the commencement information for a bill. This is typically located at the end of a bill.

►See Finding Coming Into Force Information for more detail.