How to Trace the Legislative History of a Statute

• Author: Susan Barker, Erica Anderson
• Pages: 173-183

173

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chapter eight

How to Trace the Legislative History of a

Statute

A. TIMELINE OF THE POLYGAMY SECTION OF THE

CRIMINAL CODE OF CANADA

What do we know about polygamy in the statutes from looking at the

legislative evolution?

 An Act Relating to the Law of Marriage, RSC 1886, c 161

No mention of polygamy in this statute.

 An Act to Further Amend the Criminal Law, SC 1890, c 37, s 11

Polygamy added to the Act. This is where you would start looking for

House and Senate debates to understand why this provision was added

and what the intention of Parliament was when it added this section. You

might also look for royal commission reports as well as committee evi-

dence and debates.

 Criminal Code 1892, SC 1982, c 29, ss 278 and 706

In 1892, all the criminal statutes in Canada were consolidated and amal-

gamated, resulting in the Criminal Code 1892. In the new Code, the word-

ing and meaning of the polygamy section was essentially the same as in

the earlier version. The major dierence being that the provision is now

split into two, section 278 is almost identical to the earlier sections 5(1)

and (2), section 706 is similar to section 5(3). Since no substantial chan-

ges have been made to the wording or meaning of the text, then it is not