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Use this guide for:

• A brief outline of the legislative progress of passing bills through Parliament in Canada (Federal Bills)
• Where to research bills at different stages of this legislative process

For researching case law, or current or historical laws, please view our other legal research guides.

Overview: How bills become acts

Definition: Bills are draft Acts of Parliament which are published and circulated under the authority of the House.

First reading

The first stage required in creating an Act is to first propose it as a Bill in either the House of Commons or Senate. If the proposal is supported by vote, the Bill is numbered and distributed to chamber members. At this stage, it is read, but not debated. A bill goes through three readings in the chamber it is introduced.

However, a bill that is first proposed in the House of Commons must pass through another three readings in the Senate as well, and a bill that originates in Senate must similarly pass through three readings in the House of Commons.

The Bill is assigned a number based on who introduced it. There are three types of bills (see below), and bills are assigned a sequential number which reflects its type. Bills introduced in Senate begin with an S-; Bills introduced in the House of Commons begin with a C-.

Each session of Parliament begins a brand new numbering system, so that Bill C-25 will be found in every session of the federal parliament which produced that number of bills.

Bill numbering

Print and online copies of the first reading copy of a Bill

Second reading

The bill then goes through a second reading in Parliament (Cabinet or House of Commons). The principle of the bill is debated, with these debates being recorded in Hansard. At the conclusion of the debate, a vote to "approve the bill in principle" is taken. If favourable, the bill is referred to a Committee stage; if not, the bill "dies."

The Second Reading version of a bill is rarely published. However, the debates from this second reading stage are extensively published in Hansard. The Hansard provides verbatim information on what is said in the House of Commons or Senate. This discussion may provide insight of the context of the proposed Bill.

Use the Hansard Index (print or online, as applicable) to locate your debate. The Hansard Index has entries by subject and name. In print, the index may be published in a separate volume or in the same volume as the debates.

Tip: In the event a question is not answered orally, it won't be in Hansard. If the content is long or complex, it may be published as a sessional paper.  These are listed in the Journals for each session of parliament.

Bills committee stage

If the bill passes the second reading, it will typically be sent to a committee for review and possible changes or amendments. Committees may be standing, special, or joint. Notes from the committee are recorded, along with any submissions received or evidence provided by witnesses with respect to the bill from individuals or organizations. Changes are often made to the bill at this stage.

For committees prior to 1994, there is a lack of a centralized location for browsing all committees' documentation.

Strategies for locating committee documents:

1. Search by committee name in Library Search, e.g., Standing Committee on Communication. This will lead you to individual catalogue entries, where you can click on the official (and usually longer) committee name in the author field to find more documents of this Committee.

• e.g., Canada Parliament House of Commons Standing Committee on Communications and Culture

2. For more recent committees, start with LegisINFO (1994 - present)

a. Search by bill number, e.g., C-19, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code and Firearms Act

b. Under Committee Section, the Committee name, meetings, and seatings can be found. In this example, links will take you to the associated House of Commons Standing Committees' web page with mandate, documents, minutes of proceedings and evidence.

About House of Commons Committees

About Senate Committees

About Joint Committees: Senate and House of Commons

Third reading

Next, the House of Commons or Senate votes upon the bill in its revised form. If rejected, the bill "dies." If accepted, the bill is printed in its amended state "as passed". If the Bill originated in the House of Commons, it then goes to Senate for the same three-reading process; if the bill originated in Senate, it then goes to the House of Commons for three readings. By the time of the third reading of the Bill by the second chamber, there is usually little or no debate (provided it has already gone through one chamber).

If and once the Bill has passed both the House of Commons and Senate, this text of the Bill should be virtually the same as the final Act. However, please note that the third reading version of a Bill is not the official source of the law. You will need the royal assent version--the version later published in the Annual Statutes.

Royal assent stage

Once a Bill is passed by both the House of Commons and the Senate, the Governor-General gives royal assent. The Bill is now an Act. As an act, it is renumbered, becoming a chapter in the volume of acts or statutes produced by that particular session of Parliament.

The text of the act is first printed in an issue of the Canada Gazette Part III and later reprinted in the annual volume of the Statutes of Canada. The royal assent version is authoritative, although you will need to check if the law is in force yet. If you are researching an older Act, you will want to check if there have been any amendments to that Act.

Acts may come into force immediately by royal assent, later on a particular date as indicated in the text of the Act, or, at a future date to be announced. Parts of the Act may come into force at different times.

Proclamation

Unless otherwise specified in the act, the act comes into force (i.e., is proclaimed) when it receives royal assent. However, sometimes the act -- or just certain sections of the act -- will come into force on a later date. The proclamation when an act or part of and act will come into force is printed in the Canada Gazette Part I.

You can look at the statute itself (check the Coming into Force section) to see if parts or the whole of the bill will come into force later. Note that very occasionally some Acts or parts of Acts that are due to come into force under proclamation never actually become proclaimed.

More guides on how bills become acts

• The Legislative Process A more detailed guide on how bills become laws by Queen's University Librarians
• How Canadians Govern Themselves A comprehensive look at Canadian Parliament at an introductory level
• Legislative Process The stages of a Bill, authored by the Parliament of Canada
• Federal Bills - Best Guide to Canadian Legal Research