While we can all get recent sessional Ontario laws on e-laws, it has been more difficult to get statutes from Ontario’s distant past online. Though, this is not totally correct. LLMC has digitized the Ontario laws up until 1980. The big issue with LLMC is the clunkiness of their search engine. It is very difficult to find anything specific. And though they have digitized most of the sessional laws between 1867-1980, there are still some volumes within those years that are missing.
Most law students use Hein Online for finding journal articles. And, while some students may know that the Canadian federal statutes have been posted under the Sessional law library of Hein, there is better news to come! Osgoode has given one of its complete sets of our Ontario statutes to be digitized. This will then mean that all the statutes from 1867 up until the present time will be digitized. Hein is also going to be digitizing the Revised Statutes of Canada.
So, for people frustrated at not finding the historical statutes for Ontario that they need, this will hopefully fill a gap. The only frustrating issue I have is that the search engine for Hein is still difficult to navigate, but at least a gap in Canadian statutes will be filled. Not sure though as to when they will actually be posted but this is still good news. Now, if only they would digitize the other provinces…
O Canada!