This was adapted from a discussion on the CALL listserv; many thanks to Jenny Thornhill, Bronwyn Guiton and Alexandra Everitt.

Unfortunately there is no easy tool that will allow you easily track the changes to a specific section of the Criminal Code over the years, but the following two resources may be helpful:

• Martin’s Online Criminal Code includes versions of the Criminal Code from 1955 on and is searchable.
• Crankshaw’s Criminal Code of Canada is available both in print and online through Westlaw Canada. Bronwyn Guiton noted that “Crankshaw’s isn’t always reliable in bridging major changes in provisions however

Related, and problematic.

Permit as a noun meaning ‘licence’ is totally fine (In Canada, we require owners of guns to have permits), as is the verb form when it means ‘to allow’ (Smoking is not permitted).

In legal usage – and I think mostly in US legal usage –  permit as a verb has come to mean ‘to license’ or ‘to issue a permit to’ (The permitting of architects is governed the relevant statute and professional rules).

I haven’t heard how permitting in that last sense is pronounced, but I suspect it may more …

The data analytics unit at one of what we used to call the Big Four accounting firms exhorts us to Think different. Do different. Be different.

Be different is fine (grammatically and as a matter of practice), but the other two? Oh, dear.

They really should be Think differently and Do differently, as those verbs need adverbs (typically ending in –ly) rather than adjectives like different.

The copywriters wanted something that would catch the eye, of course – even if that meant resorting to a grammatical solecism.

What these phrases mean is ‘Think[or do] that …

[Admin note: thanks to Karen Sawatzky of Manitoba’s Great Library for this tip; it was originally published on Great LEXpectations.]

Did you know? Plain language summaries of SCC decisions are available under “Cases in Brief”:

Cases in Brief are short summaries of the Court’s written decisions drafted in reader-friendly language, so that anyone interested can learn about the decisions that affect their lives.

They are prepared by communications staff of the Supreme Court of Canada. They do not form part of the Court’s reasons for judgment and are not for use in legal proceedings.

— Supreme Court of Canada website

Ministerial Orders refer to orders “created under the authority granted to a minister under a statute or regulation that are made by a Minister” as opposed to Orders in Council which are issued by the Governor General of Canada or the Lieutenant Governor of a province. 

For that reason it’s generally harder to find Ministerial Orders than Orders in Council, although this depends greatly on the province. Some provinces, such as British Columbia, make all their Ministerial Orders available in one place. For other jurisdictions you may have to look specifically at the Ministry’s website to find …

If you find you use a lot of semi-colons, there’s a good chance your sentences are too long. Break things into smaller units, especially for readers using a small screen.

Semi-colons can be useful in lists where the enumerated items are clauses with internal commas, so you know what goes with what. Parentheses could help, but a thicket of round brackets (or any kind of brackets, really) is hard on the eye (as my friend and colleague Angela Swan points out).

In those situations, it might be easier for your reader to put the items in a bulleted or numbered …

The Canadian census is carried out every five years (you may remember filling it out earlier this year) and, in addition to basic demographic information, covers such areas as housing and employment.

If you’re trying to find census information on a more granular level than simply for the country as a whole, the first thing that you need to determine is what geographic area you are interested in. Do you want to pull statistics for the country as a whole or on a more granular basis?

Statistics Canada divides the country up in a number of different ways including:

• Provinces

What does it mean when you table a motion at a meeting?

It depends on where you live.

For those in the non-US parts of the English-speaking world, to table means to submit something formally for discussion or consideration.

The expression comes from act of laying your submission on the table of a legislative assembly or other decision-making body (like a board of directors). This usage goes back at least as far as the 1650s.

The Glossary of Parliamentary Procedure use table as a noun and verb in these senses: https://www.ourcommons.ca/About/Glossary/Index-e.html#LetterT

In the USA, however, tabling has, since the mid …

It’s disheartening to see how frequently people mess up with commas.

This kind of thing is all too common: Partner, Alfredo Garcia will be speaking about …

Remove that comma! And don’t be tempted to leave it but add one after Garcia! Both suggest that there is only one partner (which, as you know, is not possible as a matter of law).

Another version of the same error: My colleagues, Suresh and Amy, will … It’s not an error if these are your only colleagues, which is the implication of those offsetting commas. If you have more than just …

For legal professionals working with a high volume of cases, it can be difficult to stay up to date with legal research for all of them. However, with the alert feature on Lexbox, it’s easy to keep track of changes to legal information on CanLII that is relevant to your field of work or study.

Lexbox offers three types of alerts:

1. Citation alerts — these allow you to track the impact of a case over time.

2. Amendment alerts — these allow you to monitor the changes in a statute over time.

3. Query alerts — these …