Ready for Regulations, Part I: Updating Regulations Online

We previously published a blog post on deciphering legislative source notes (or breadcrumbs) to help you discern changes made to regulations over time. Today we’re introducing a three-part series about finding tools for your regulations research!

To start, we will review how to update regulations online beyond the e-Laws and Justice Laws currency date.

Each Consolidated statute on e-Laws contains a Regulations under this Act tab. On Justice Laws, there is a section within the Table of Contents of the consolidated Act titled Regulations made under this Act. These are easy-to-use tools that gather, consolidate and link to all the most current regulations made under the statute.

Both Federal and Ontario governments publish and update their regulations electronically on their official websites on an ongoing basis (phew!). While most regulations are current online, there is still a gap between when a regulation is published or added into the consolidation. The Justice Laws website is generally updated every two weeks,¹ and e-Laws is typically within a week.²Each site displays a “currency date”, the date on which the consolidated legislation is “current to”. For example, if the listed currency date is July 25, 2022, then users visiting the site on July 28, 2022 can expect consolidated regulations to be current to July 25.

But, what if you need to update regulations beyond the e-Laws and Justice Laws currency date, to today’s date? In other words, what if you need to obtain the freshest, up-to-date version of a regulation?

Sources for updating Federal Regulations:

Check the most recent issue of Canada Gazette Part II. Part II is published every other Wednesday.

Next, go to the Orders in Council database. Check for any new or amending regulations (under the relevant Acts) that were made after the most recent issue of the Gazette or the Justice Laws currency date.

TIP: While you can search by Act name, for thoroughness, scroll through all the most recent OICs filed after the latest Gazette or after the Justice Laws currency date. Leave the search boxes blank and click Search/List to see all the latest Orders filed.

If you’re anticipating future changes, check the Canada Gazette Part I for draft/proposed regulations.

Sources for updating Ontario Regulations:

Check the most recent issue of the Ontario Gazette (published weekly, on Fridays).

New source law is usually published on e-Laws within two business days. To view the newest regulations:

select “Source Law”
select the current year from the drop-down
check only “Regulations as filed”, and press the “Browse” button.

Review the results list, focusing on regulations that were filed after the most recent issue of the Gazette or after the e-Laws currency date.

Review the latest Orders in Council issued on the Orders in Council database.

Finally, depending on the type of regulation you are updating, you can also check for proposed regulations published on the Ontario Regulatory Registry – Current Proposals to help you take note of what’s on the horizon.

Now that we’ve gone forward, tune in next time for some tools and resources to help you go backwards…