Use 3rd Party Sites
I absolutely love resources like legisalture and parliament websites that offer details about current and historical legislation and it’s progress. I also love government websites that offer the full text of various government publications. Sometimes those sites don’t offer the quick way to exactly what you need.
Today’s Tip: Don’t be afraid to use 3rd party collections of things rather than their original source.
Think about all of the Open Data initiatives – open data websites collect from a variety of sources into a clearinghouse website. Like a library but without a decent reference desk – great for experienced gatherers who know what they are looking for though. I recently peeked at openparliament.ca which is an excellent umbrella search tool.
Good point, Shaunna. About 15 years ago I wrote (for CALL) a piece on ‘{a href=”http://www.euclid.ca/call.html “>pretty good authentication‘ which foresaw the use of informal but reliable collections as a good source of legal documents, at least for some purposes.
Of course if one wants to rely on statutory presumptions that an online source is admissible as the official record, or an official copy, then one will have to get the record as specified in that statute. cf. Legislation Act, 2006 (Ontario) ss. 34- 41.