Canadian Federal Legislation on LEGISinfo

I have referred to the Parliament of Canada's LEGISinfo site a few times here and it has also been discussed by Library Boy and at Slaw.ca. This valuable site has recently undergone a visual and usability transformation.

You can do some really cool things with the new tool, including checking up on your MP to see if they have sponsored any bills and what they were. Use the Refine menu on the right panel to narrow Check it our before you vote next time :-)

One particular new feature that I want to highlight for any lurking Fielders is the Legislation at a Glance tool. This allows a one page-ish overview of the status of evey bill before the Senate or House and hovering over the bill number gives you the title and a short status visual.

Well done App. Devs. at the Parliament of Canada.

Definition of persistence

Persistence, thy name is Senator Tommy Banks.

Those of you who attended the CALL/ACBD 2006 conference in Edmonton may remember Senator Banks' plenary session on a bill he introduced called: "An Act to repeal legislation that has not been brought into force within ten years of receiving royal assent"

This bill, originally introduced in the Senate on December 11, 2002 will finally become law on June 18, 2010.

Here is the path of this bill from LegisINFO:

39th Parliament - 2nd Session (Oct. 16, 2007 - )
S-207
An Act to repeal legislation that has not come into force within ten years of receiving royal assent(Statutes Repeal Act)
39th Parliament - 1st Session (April 3, 2006 - Sept. 14, 2007)
S-202
An Act to repeal legislation that has not come into force within ten years of receiving royal assent(Statutes Repeal Act)
38th Parliament - 1st Session (Oct. 4, 2004 - Nov. 29, 2005)
S-5
An Act to repeal legislation that has not come into force within ten years of receiving royal assent(Statutes Repeal Act)
37th Parliament - 3rd Session (Feb. 2, 2004 - May 23, 2004)
S-11
An Act to repeal legislation that has not come into force within ten years of receiving royal assent(Statutes Repeal Act)
37th Parliament - 2nd Session (Sept. 30, 2002 - Nov. 12, 2003)
S-12
An Act to repeal legislation that has not been brought into force within ten years of receiving royal assent(Statutes Repeal Act)

Yes - this did die on the order paper 4 times.

The concept of this legislation is that unproclaimed acts, if suddenly brought into force at a much later date than when the legislation was introduced could have a serious and negative impact on the act of today (as opposed to the act when the amendment was passed). This house cleaning law is a very interesting addition to our pantheon of legislation. I remind you of this list of statutes not in force that Senator Banks discussed at the conference

Congratulations Senator Banks.

Copyright Act Bill C-32 passed 2nd reading this morning

November 5, 8:43 a.m.. WDT
Bill C-32 passed 2nd reading in the House of Commons this morning.
How do I know about this?

Not through any 'traditional' information source. Or perhaps Twitter has become a traditional information source.

cippic cippic
RT @sarah_schmidt_: #copyright bill just passed 2nd reading in
#HoC: let the lobbying of MPs on #INDU cmttee begin #cdnpoli (h/t @kismith)

If you are reading this post some other time than the morning of November 5, you can look to the C-32 LEGISINFO page on the Parliamentary website for details of this bill's progress through the house.

What is the point of this post? If you need to know something about what is hapenning NOW look to the sources of immediate knowledge, like (who would have guessed it) Twitter.