Legislation and commentary

11Jun12

Working in Ontario, with the lion’s share of Canadian lawyers, I appreciate the wealth of annotated and consolidated legislative books. My interest was heightened by Shaunna Mireau’s Slaw research tip on the value of annotated acts. She explains that the legislation is laid out act section by section with some expert commentary. Why invent the wheel when picking up a book is the key to understanding complex legislation. In fact there are multiple annotated versions of the Income Tax Act from commercial legal publishers. I echo the need for more annotated or consolidated Alberta acts. One would guess with expanding economy, and growing legal practice these factors may lead to demand from Western Canadian lawyers for legislation and commentary. When researching topics in other province, both Canadian Encyclopedic Digest and Halsbury’s Laws of Canada are good starting points. Halsbury’s is written by authorities in the field, like Kevin Patrick McGuinness (business corporations) and Vern Krishna (tax).

In our library we get asked for Wayne Gray’s Annotated Canada Business Corporations Act a lot. He’s been updating it for over 10 years. For potential authors/lawyers out there, one day you might be known as Singh on Alberta Personal Property Security Act.

– Brenda Wong