Info Reading a statute or regulation

Reading a statute or regulation

The page layout, table of contents, anchors and cited-by badges.

An instrument page is the whole consolidation on one page: parts, sections, subsections and schedules in document order. That makes browser search and citation anchors work across the entire Act, while the sidebar keeps the structure navigable.

The header names the instrument code and title and shows the jurisdiction badge when the corpus is provincial or foreign. The metadata line carries the consolidation date (current to or last amended), a link to the official source where one is published, and, for a regulation, the enabling Act (made under). Federal Acts with mirrored snapshots also link to Historical versions.

The table of contents

The sidebar is a real tree: parts and divisions nest, sections land in the innermost branch, and empty branches are pruned. Click any entry to jump to its anchor. The jump box above the tree accepts a section or article number such as 8 or 8(1)(a), a heading fragment, or, for paginated U.S. cases, a page number; the browser's own find function searches the page text.

Heading rows have a collapse control. Clicking a heading, or the chevron that appears beside it, folds everything below it until the next heading of the same or higher level. The hash navigation used by links and the table of contents expands the enclosing headings automatically, so a deep link always lands on visible text. On phones the sidebar starts collapsed to keep the article above the fold.

The text

Each provision carries its citation head and its text. Definitions are ordinary provision blocks. Tables are rendered as tables with a horizontal scroll on narrow screens. Publisher apparatus that is not part of the law — editorial notes, history notes, source credits and annotations — is not part of the node text.

A repealed provision is marked, and text that is not yet in force is flagged where the source provides that information. Provincial and foreign corpora differ: Ontario, for example, skips not-yet-in-force text, and Irish Acts are as enacted, so later amendments are absent.

Anchors and citation links

Every provision has an HTML anchor equal to its citation path. A citation URL such as /C-46/s.8(1)) redirects to the provision's anchor on the instrument page, and French pages mirror the route under /fr. The same path is what a hover card, a case pinpoint or an API client uses.

In the running text, a resolved reference is a link. Hover it for a preview, or click it to open the target at the right provision. The next page, Citations and hover previews, explains the link states in detail.

Cited in N cases

A provision cited by one or more loaded judgments carries a Cited in N cases link at the end of its heading. It opens the cited-by page, ranked by court level and citation frequency, with paragraph or page chips for each case. From there you can open the judgment at the exact pinpoint.