As a student librarian doing a co-op at the Great Library, one of the first things I learned was locating point-in-time legislation. “Backdating” is the act of tracing the history of an act through its previous versions. In the short time I’ve been at the Great Library, I’ve had several questions about locating historical point-in-time legislation, especially for Manitoba statutes.
I thought I would conduct a quick refresher on how to access these documents using the HeinOnline database behind the Law Society Member Portal.
Let’s say for example you were interested in tracing back the Cemeteries Act to find out what the Act looked like in 1980.
Remember that:
Federal statutes were revised in 1886, 1906, 1927, 1952, 1970, and 1985
Manitoba statutes were revised 1892, 1902, 1913, 1924 (consolidated amendments), 1940, 1954, 1970, and Re-enacted: 1987-1990
In our example, the closest revision year was 1970. The Cemeteries Act in 1980 will include the 1970 version plus any amendments made up until 1980.
Next, look up the amendments and the 1970 version of the Act. We’ll do this by navigating to the LSM Member Portal and accessing HeinOnline.
Although the year we are interested in is 1980, it’s a good idea to go one year past the year you’re looking for. This way you catch amendments that were made in 1980, but weren’t published until 1981. Select the link for 1980-1981.
Scroll down the left-side menu to click on “List of Statutes in Continuing Consolidation”. Acts are listed alphabetically, and under the Cemeteries Act, we can see the 1970 Revised Statutes of Manitoba version and its chapter, as well as a list of amendments up until 1980, including chapter and section:
The next step is to put all of the amendments into context within the 1970 Act, and then we’ll have a picture of how the Cemeteries Act was comprised in 1980.
February 25, 2022 – In light of recent changes to provincial public health orders, the three Manitoba Courts have released a new notice regarding a reopening plan.
With the goal of a June 27th full reopening, in the coming weeks each of the Courts will be announcing a transition to an increased level of service for its respective Court.
This will be applied in all Manitoba court facilities as follows:
Support Persons — April 18, 2022: As of April 18th, there will be an increase from two to five support persons allowed per accused, victim, or child witness.
Masks — May 16, 2022: Until May 16th, masks will continue to be required by all attendees to any court facility in the Province. Masks are available at the entry to all court facilities. Without proof of exemption, any attendees without a mask will be refused entry or asked to leave. Although no longer required after May 16th, mask use will continue to be supported as a means of minimizing the risk of COVID-19 transmission, unless requested otherwise by a presiding judge in the context of a hearing.
Public Access — June 27, 2022: Unlimited access to the courts by members of the public will resume on June 27th. As of this date, there will no longer be any COVID-19 related restrictions in place.
Did you know that Lexbox, the free online legal workspace, allows users to set up amendment alerts on CanLII to receive notification that a piece of legislation has changed?
All you need is a free Lexbox account and then sign up for amendment alerts by selecting a piece of legislation on CanLII. Click on the “Set up amendment alert” button and save it to a folder in your Lexbox workspace.
Lexbox will track amendments to the Act and notify you when there are updates. You can receive daily or weekly email alerts, or when you sign in to the Lexbox platform.
Lexbox will even tell you the estimated number of alerts you can expect. For example, 3 alerts per year are expected for The Public Schools Act.
Using amendment alerts with Lexbox is a great way to stay on top of changes to key statutes and regulations for your practice.
Did you know that the Law Society’s Education Centre updated and added new content to their Practice Area Fundamentals documents last September? Whether you are brushing up on current law and practice in Manitoba or new to a practice area, the Practice Area Fundamentals are a valuable free resource for our Members.
Developed with volunteer lawyers with relevant practice experience, Practice Area Fundamentals update the old Bar Admission (aka CPLED) materials in several practice areas.
Alongside the chapter on Criminal Law, the Education Centre added new chapters in:
“The Court will resume all regularly scheduled sittings and all previously scheduled special sittings in all locations and will resume hearing all matters including trials, preliminary inquiries, dispositions and bail applications in all court centres and circuit locations, subject to specific localized closures. Judicial Justice of the Peace dockets in Thompson circuit locations will continue to be held remotely until further notice.”
“Unless counsel is already appearing on a matter requiring a personal appearance, the presumption that counsel and accused persons will appear remotely continues to apply to all other matters where nothing substantive is expected to take place.”
“The Provincial Court of Manitoba remains closed to members of the general public.”
The Manitoba Law Library would like to acknowledge with gratitude that we are situated on Treaty One Territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree and Dakota peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
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