Legislative Research – Know How, the blog of the Great Library

CanLII Changes: News You Can Use

Hello, Know How subscribers and visitors from the World Wide Web. Chiming in today to re-broadcast some announcements from our friends over at the Canadian Legal Information Institute, more commonly known as CanLII, Canada’s most trusted free repository for jurisprudence and legal information. Some of you will have seen this news via CanLII’s own blog post this past Tuesday. We’re signal boosting here for those who might otherwise miss it – click through to read about some big announcements they made this past week.

Bizarre Laws: They’ve Taken My Horses!

In this new series we are going to investigate some current (and still in force) laws that seem either quite outdated or downright silly in the current era. To do this, we will use our legislative research skills. First, we will trace back the law and see if we find any clear sense of legislative intent. Then we will note up the statute to see if any case law can shed some light onto why it might still be in force.

New Year, New Law? Not Always

With a new year comes new legislation, and a common assumption: if a law is repealed, it’s gone for good. However, that is not always the case. Despite the finality implied by the word, repeal often produces unexpectedly nuanced legal effects.