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Cite Canadian legal documents by following the Canadian Guide to Uniform legal citation.
If you are citing for an assignment, add additional formatting to follow the style guide your instructor requests. For example, if you're citing a Canadian court decision but your instructor asks you to follow APA citation style, add the case's CanLII URL after the act's chapter or section number, to meet APA requirements for URLs for web sources.
See below for explanations and examples for constructing Canadian legal citations.
This is based on the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 10th edition (aka the The McGill Guide), in VCC libraries at KF 245 C36 2023.
Preparing a factum or submission to the BC Court of Appeal? Look at:
The BC Court of Appeal instructs us to "cite as precisely as possible to all authorities, for example, to paragraph or section numbers, rather than to pages or chapters" (Practice Directive Citation of Authorities, 2022).
Include the name of the act, abbreviated volume & jurisdiction, the year, and then the chapter number. What does this mean?
Every year some entirely new laws are created, but most laws just change existing laws. Each year, all the new laws are printed and put online.
Existing laws do not get re-printed every year, or every time something is changed. For example, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code will only include the changes; the entire Criminal Code is not reprinted. Online versions include any changes: the top of the webpage should say "act current to (date)."
Public laws used to be re-printed to include all the changes; this is called a Revised Statutes (RS). The last federal Canadian Revised Statutes set was printed in 1985; for BC it was 1996. If a law is entirely new, it's just called a Statute (S).
Jurisdiction: Canada C
If it's a federal law, the jurisdiction is Canada (C). If it's British Columbia, the jurisdiction is represented by BC. (Appendix A-1 of the McGill Guide has abbreviations for all Canadian provinces and territories.)
Year: 1985
The last reprinting of all Canada's federal laws--or Revised Statutes--was in 1985. So Canada's Criminal Code is dated 1985, even though it is much older than that.
Note: The McGill Guide instructs to assume a law is up-to-date to the day you published your paper. So the citation Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46 refers to the current version, including recent changes (McGill, 2.1.11 p. E-26). Your instructor may give you other instructions. If you're referring to a specific point in time, you can add as it appeared on [day month year] or as it appeared on [month year].
Chapter: c C-46
The small c indicates the word chapter. The C-46 means that the Criminal Code is the 46th chapter starting with the letter C in the 1985 Revised Statutes of Canada. A law that is not in a revised statute, for example because it was new in the year 2002, does not include a letter other than the small c representing the word chapter. RSC 1985 was the most recent federal revision.
Other elements: pinpoint.
Section number: s
You can be very specific, citing subsections as well:
Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46, s 163(1)(b).
Other elements: Indexing, (session or supplement)
Include these if relevant. See the McGill Guide, Rule 2.1.8 Year, Session, and Supplement (p E-25).
Other examples:
Canadian federal act
Agricultural Marketing Programs Act, SC 1997, c 2.
Note the difference between the citation for the Criminal Code and this more recent act. There's no "R" and no letter with the chapter. This act came after the latest revised statutes, ie post-1985.
British Columbia acts
Motor Vehicle Act, RSBC 1996, c 318.
The "R" means this is a revised statute; in 1996, BC's acts were reprinted in consolidations. The "S" means statutes, and the BC means British Columbia. The Motor Vehicle Act has been updated many times since 1996, but unless the government does a substantial revision and assigns the act a new date to reflect that, we still cite it as the year of the last revision.
Administrative Tribunals Act, SBC 2004, c 45
Note the difference between the citation for the Motor Vehicle Act and this more recent act. There's no "R," because this act was created after the last revision.
See pages McGill Guide, E-29 - 31, or the Canadian Open Access Legal Citation Guide for more examples of citing provincial and federal regulations.
This is based on the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, (The McGill Guide), adapted to suit the resources freely available to our students. Note: Vancouver Community College subscribes to Quicklaw, but not any print reporters, so this guide is adapted accordingly.
Include the names of parties (shortened as needed). Use a "neutral citation," where available; do not create your own. The court assigns the neutral citation based on the year, the court (abbreviated), and a number (McGill Guide p. E-43 & Appendix B-3). The format is slightly different for cases decided before there were neutral citations (pre-2000ish for most courts). CanLII also has a detailed guide to citing case law.
Sample citation (civil case): CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada, 2004 SCC 13.
Style of cause: CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada,
"Style of cause" is a shortened, less formal, name of a court case. Note that there is no punctuation after v; use c for French-language cases.
Parties: CCH Canadian Limited and The Law Society of Upper Canada
Neutral citation: 2004 SCC 13
Year: 2004
Decision issued in 2004.
Court: Supreme Court of Canada
This is a Supreme Court of Canada case, abbreviated as SCC.
Number: 13
13th case decided by the Supreme Court in 2004.
Judge: McLachlin CJC
Sometimes it is relevant to include the judge's last name and abbreviated title at the end of the case, but this is not always needed. Because she was then the Chief Justice of Canada, we use CJC with McLachlin. J means Justice or Judge (The McGill Guide, pp. E-49-50 for more information).
Online Databases
You might also include the online database identifier.
Depending on the case, it may just be the case name plus the name of the database in brackets:
Sample citation (civil case, CanLII): CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada, 2004 SCC 13 (CanLII).
The same case cited from QuickLaw is:
Sample citation (civil case, QuickLaw): CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada, [2004] SCJ No 12 (QL).
Criminal case (no neutral citation, Supreme Court of Canada): R v Landry, [1986] 1 SCR 145.
R represents the queen (regina) or king (rex). It's a criminal case. Landry is the last name of the person charged. Note that there is no punctuation after R or v.
SCR indicates the official reporter Supreme Court Reports.
[1986] is the year published in the Supreme Court Reports.
1 shows it appears in the first print volume for that year, starting on page 145. The Supreme Court Reports are online, but pagination does not correspond in the print & electronic versions. (McGill Guide p. E-38 for general forms of citing cases; pp. E-43 for neutral citation.)
Criminal case (with neutral citation, Supreme Court of Canada): R v Bryan, 2007 SCC 12.
Countries, municipalities, provinces, and federal units: Calgary (City of) v Canada, 2012 SCC 20.
Identifier such as "city" or "township" is enclosed in parentheses. Common name of country is used (vs abbreviation or formal name). See the McGill Guide, starting at p. E-40.
Organization and a federal unit (in BC Supreme Court): Providence Health Care Society v Canada, 2014 BCSC 1160
This is a case against the Attorney General of Canada. Canada is used a shorter form of this.
Undisclosed parties (Alberta Provincial Court): Re TM, 2007 ABPC 38.
Publication restriction on identifying the individual(s) so initials used. Apprehension order of a minor, with no opposing party in court (McGill Guide, p. E-42).
Alberta King's Bench*: Lameman v Alberta, 2012 ABQB 195.
Notice the court shortened the party names to create the style of cause, a shorter version of the party's full official name. Most of the time the reporter will do this. If not, shorten it to the last name of the first party (pp. E-38 & E-39, McGill Guide). Full party names are:
Alphonse Lameman on His Own Behalf and on Behalf of All Other Beaver Lake Cree Nation Beneficiaries of Treaty No. 6, and Beaver Lake Cree Nation v Her Majesty the Queen In Right of the Province of Alberta and the Attorney General of Canada.
but you don't need to include all that information!
*The prairie provinces refer to their provincial supreme courts as "King's Bench."
The McGill Guide specifies the preferred order for sources:
See McGill Guide, 10th ed., p. E-37.
The McGill Guide encourages "parallel citation" if you don't have neutral citation or a CanLII citation. This means mentioning at least two sources.
Your workplace may differ from this guide, which assumes you're citing from CanLII, QuickLaw, or a court's website.
Reference CanLII before a subscription database, because your reader may not have access to the fee-based source.
Canadian guide to uniform legal citation (10/e)These instructions are based on this book. Follow any practice directions from relevant courts; for example, the BC Court of Appeal follows a modified version of the 7th edition and requires punctuation in the citations.
If you're citing for academic work, you may wish to add information requested by that style guide. For example, identify format for MLA or add a link for APA.
Courts
BCPC: British Columbia Provincial Court
BCSC: BC Supreme Court
BCCA: BC Court of Appeal
FC: Federal Court of Canada
SCC: Supreme Court of Canada
Statutes
RSBC: Revised Statutes of British Columbia
SBC: Statutes of British Columbia (new statute since last print revision)
RSC: Revised Statutes of Canada
SC: Statutes of Canada (new statute since last print revision)
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