We all have a few tricks up our sleeve when it comes to performing legal research. We sometimes share them with clients. And sometimes, we like to use those tricks to hunt down seemingly impossible to find material and wow them. Because nothing is “impossible” for law librarians.

The CALL blog has started a new regular series of research tips and tricks.

Please share your favourite or coolest strategies with Michel-Adrien Sheppard to have them published on the CALL blog.

Nous avons tous nos trucs favoris quand il s'agit de faire de la recherche juridique. Parfois, nous les partageons avec nos clients. Et parfois, nous aimons les épater en utilisant ces trucs et astuces pour mettre la main sur des informations apparemment impossibles à trouver. Car rien n’est « impossible » pour des bibliothécaires de droit.

Le blogue de l'ACBD a lancé une nouvelle série sur les trucs et astuces de recherche.

SVP partagez vos stratégies les plus intéressantes ou les plus « cool » avec Michel-Adrien Sheppard afin de les faire publier sur le blogue de CALL/ACBD.

Today: What is a Supplement?

By Susannah Tredwell, Manager of Library Services at DLA Piper (Canada) LLP in Vancouver (originally published June 23, 2021 as a SlawTip on the Slaw.ca website):

You will notice that some citations for acts contain the abbreviation “Supp.” (short for “supplement”). An example of this would be “Competition Tribunal Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. 19 (2nd Supp.)”. But what does this mean?

The main volumes of R.S.C. 1985 contain acts that came into being before or on December 31, 1984, but R.S.C. 1985 was not brought into force until December 12, 1988. So what happened to all the legislation made between January 1, 1985 and December 11, 1988? If you guessed that they became the supplements to R.S.C. 1985 you would be correct; for example R.S.C. 1985 (1st Supp.) contains the acts that received Royal Assent in 1985 and R.S.C. 1985 (2nd Supp.) contains the acts that received Royal Assent in 1986.

The supplements to R.S.C. 1985 have different in force dates depending on which supplement they are in; the BC Courthouse Libraries has produced a helpful guide to the various in force dates.

You will also find supplements in provincial legislation, e.g. R.S.B.C. 1996 included any acts that had received Royal Assent but had not come into force as of December 31, 1996 (the cut off date for the Revised Statutes) as supplements.