Sessional Papers – Federal and Ontario

Sessional Papers from the Federal and Ontario governments provide an interesting glimpse into the evolution of Canadian governance. They capture the policies, debates, and decisions of the time, making them a valuable resource for exploring legislative intent, especially behind historical statutes. In today’s blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the Great Library’s collection of Federal and Ontario Sessional Papers.

But first, WHAT ARE SESSIONAL PAPERS?

Sessional Papers are collections of reports and documents tabled in the House of Commons or the Legislative Assembly during a legislative session to support parliamentary business. Produced by government departments, agencies, or Assembly members, they can include annual reports, committee and commission reports, draft legislation, answers to written questions, Census volumes, petitions, background papers, or compendia accompanying Bills. While compiled together, these papers are not cited as a whole (particularly in the courts); instead, individual documents within the collection are cited separately.[1]

GREAT LIBRARY HOLDINGS AND ACCESS

Upper Canada

1792-1839/40: Journal of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada
The Journals for 1825-1839/40 have Appendices containing sessional papers.
Accessible in print at the Great Library, located in the American Room.
Online collection, available from Early Canadiana Online (1825-1839). Appendix to Journal of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada available from Early Canadiana Online (1825-1839)

Province of Canada

1841-1866: Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
The Journals for 1841 to 1859 have Appendices containing sessional papers.
Accessible in print at the Great Library, located in the American Room.
Online collection, available from Early Canadiana Online (1841-1866). Appendix to the Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada available from Early Canadiana Online (1841-1859)

1843-1866: Journals of the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada
The Journals for 1843 to 1866 have Appendices containing sessional papers (bound as part of the Journals).
Accessible in print at the Great Library, located in the American Room.
Online collection, available from Early Canadiana Online (1841-1866).

1860-1866: Sessional Papers of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
Superseded the Appendices to the Journals of the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada and Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada.[2]
Accessible in print at the Great Library, located in the American Room.
Online collection, available from Early Canadiana Online (1860-1866).

Before separate volumes of Sessional Papers began to be published in 1860, as you may have noticed, tabled documents were frequently printed as appendices to the Journals. For a consolidated index, see: The Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada : an index to journal appendices and sessional papers, 1841-1866 / compiled by Patricia A. Damphouse. This item is also available in print in the closed stacks of the Great Library. Library staff will be happy to retrieve it for you upon request.

Federal

1867-1924: Sessional Papers of the Dominion of Canada[3]
Accessible in print at the Great Library, located in the American Room.
Online collection, available from Early Canadiana Online (1867-1900) and the Internet Archive (1901-1925). Note: Parliamentary committee reports were excluded as these were printed as appendices to the Journals.

1924-Present
Official publication of sessional papers in a collected series ceased in 1925. Between 1924 and 1930 (15^th – 16th Parliaments), these papers were mainly published under the titles Annual Reports of Departments, Royal Commission Reports, etc. The Great Library has a small selection of these documents in print which you can search for using our library catalogue, for example:

1924-1926:  Annual Reports of the Dominion of Canada
Accessible in print at the Great Library, located in the American Room. Online collection, available from the Internet Archive (1925-1927).

After 1930, sessional papers reverted to being published individually rather than as part of a collection (in some cases they appear as appendices to the Journals). Since 1963 (26th Parliament), sessional papers have been catalogued individually by the department that issued them. They are assigned a unique number which is listed in the Journals along with a brief description of the document.

The most effective way to locate sessional papers is by consulting the Journals. The Journals are accessible in print in the Great Library’s American Room, or online through the Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources Portal. Once you’ve identified the paper you need, see if it’s available online through Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Library of Parliament or Government of Canada Publications. If it’s only available in print, you can request a copy. Keep in mind that not all Sessional Papers have been digitized – if you can’t locate what you’re looking for, consider contacting the library by email.

For the current session(s), use the House of Commons Publication Search tool.

Unpublished Sessional Papers
“Unpublished” Sessional Papers refers to those papers tabled in the House of Commons, but not distributed directly by the Government, as Sessional Papers, for public use. An original copy is retained by Library and Archives Canada, which holds an extensive collection of sessional papers. The Library of Parliament, along with several university government document libraries, also maintain significant collections.

Note: unpublished Sessional Papers from the 1st Parliament to the 12th Parliament, 5th Session (1867-1915), were destroyed in the Parliament buildings fire of 1916 and are not available.

Ontario 

1868-1948: Sessional Papers of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Accessible in print at the Great Library, located in the American Room.
Online collection, available from the Internet Archive (1868-1948)

1949-Present
Since 1949, sessional papers have no longer been published as part of an official series but are instead issued individually. As with Federal Sessional Papers, to locate Sessional Papers tabled in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, start by consulting the list in the appropriate Journal volume, accessible in print in the Great Library’s American Room or online through the OLA. You can then search for specific papers in the Ontario Legislative Library catalogue. If the document is available electronically, the full text is typically accessible through the catalogue entry. If not, try locating a print copy at the Archives of Ontario, university government documents libraries, or online via the Internet Archive. The Ontario Legislative Library likely holds a copy, but access is restricted and should be considered a last resort.

For more information regarding access, and for a list of sessional papers from the current session(s), go to the Ontario Legislative Assembly’s website > Sessional Papers.

Some tips and takeaways…

• An index is the best place to start when looking for specific Sessional Papers or researching a particular topic, whether the Papers are published or unpublished. Indexes are available in both print and online formats, though the print version is generally much easier to navigate.
• If you’re searching the index for a very specific topic, you might not find many results. For instance, searching for “residential tenancy law” might not produce many entries. In such cases, try broadening your terms to “landlord and tenant” or “property”.

You’ll note that the Great Library’s collection of Sessional Papers is available in our American Room, which currently houses our Federal and Ontario legislative collections. However, since these volumes are stored in the catwalk area, a library staff member will need to retrieve them for you. If you’re unsure whether the Great Library holds a specific paper, feel free to email us at greatlibrary@lso.ca before your visit.

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[1] Susan Barker & Erica Anderson, Researching Legislative Intent: A Practical Guide (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2019) at 116.

[2] There was considerable duplication of printing during this period: “From 1841 to 1859, the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly each had its own committee on printing, contracts for this printing were awarded independently and for this reason sometimes several printers were under contract at the same time. […] the duplication in the printing of reports which had been presented to both Houses was eliminated through replacing the volumes of the Appendix to the Journals by a set of Sessional Papers of the Parliament.” During the period 1860-1866, “both the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council continued to include Appendices with their volumes of Journals, and these do not appear in the Sessional Papers set. For these years, the Appendices, usually, are concerned with matters of interest to one House only.” Pamela Hardisty, Publications of the Canadian Parliament: a detailed guide to the dual-media edition of Canadian Parliamentary proceedings and sessional papers, 1841-1970 (Washington, D.C.: United States Historical Documents Institute, 1974) at 3-4.

[3] For information on this collection’s organization and history, check out this Library and Archives Canada blog post.