Finding Historical BC Legislation

- [Rebecca] Hi, I'm Rebecca.

- [Meghan] And I'm Meghan.

- [Rebecca] And in this screen cast, we'll show you how to view point-in-time BC Legislation side-by-side with current BC Legislation and how to trace back a section of a BC Act.

- [Meghan] Now, Rebecca, you've agreed to help me answer some questions from my client, an avid fisherman who, for years, disposed of fish heads at the wooded area near the back of his property. This property shares a border with his neighbor who's complained to wildlife officials that my client is feeding bears. The neighbor has photographs of my client disposing of fish heads from this summer, the summer of 2007, and summer of 1999. I've reviewed the current section of the Act which seems to suggest that my client has offended the Act in its current form. So now I need to see how the Act read during the older two time periods.

- [Rebecca] How about we pick up where we left off and find what section 33.1 looked like in July 2007 and July 1999.

- [Meghan] That would be great.

- [Rebecca] We'll use Quickscribe again since it contains point-in-time legislation and this historical changes to BC Acts. Once in Quickscribe, enter the title of the Act into the search box on the left hand side. Nothing changes in the main part of the screen, but a results list appears directly underneath the search box.

- [Meghan] Oh, thank you for reminding me. That's not necessarily where I'd expect to look.

- [Rebecca] It can be a bit confusing. So we'll actually start with the current section 33.1 since Quickscribe has a shortcut that will allow us to work backwards easily. What you wanna pay attention to here is the flag. Flags next to sections are color coded to indicate a recent amendment, substitution, or repeal. Clicking on the flag also lists point-in-time legislation.

- [Meghan] Oh, I really like the flags. So it looks like the first time period I'm interested in would be the version from June 20, 2007. Can we take a look at that one?

- [Rebecca] When you click on a point-in-time link, it opens in a separate window.

- [Meghan] Nice! Now if I was looking at these books in print, I would put them side-by-side. Can we do that here?

- [Rebecca] Absolutely, just drag the window over and line it up so you can see both the current and older legislation side by side.

- [Meghan] Wow, this section looks quite different in 2007. It appears to me as though intent was a much stronger factor in 2007. My client tells me he was only ever intending to dispose of the fish heads, so reading through these sections, I can see I have a solid argument that he was not offending this provision back in 2007. I also noticed the older section doesn't use the term attractant or specifically refer to fish carcasses. Does this mean that attractant wasn't a definition in 2007? And can we check what the definition was for dangerous wildlife in 2007?

- [Rebecca] The definitions also have flags to indicate changes, so we can check just by pulling up the definitions box to look.

- [Meghan] Nice, more flags! So it looks like attractant was first added in 2011, which means fish carcasses may not necessarily be applicable for my dates. What about dangerous wildlife?

- [Rebecca] According to the flag, dangerous wildlife was added in 1999 and hasn't had any amendments since then.

- [Meghan] Okay, so those would certainly be included for all of my dates. Now that we're clear on the definitions and what section 33.1 looked like in 2007, can we check my last date from July of 1999? The box with the blue flags doesn't appear to go back far enough. Now what do I do?

- [Rebecca] One other option we have in Quickscribe is to check the Historical Changes table. You'll find this table on the first page of the Act right above the index. Simply click the blue View Historical Changes and it will open up a table that we can check by section number. Quickscribe has two tables of historical changes, the one shown below for changes post-1997 and one for changes pre-1997.

- [Meghan] Oh, I bet that's because the 1996 consolidation year.

- [Rebecca] Exactly, and when the statutes are consolidated, a new table of historical changes is created to keep the list from ever getting too lengthy. So if we wanted to see what section 33.1 looked like prior to 1996, we would have to look at Quickscribe's older table which provides the list of amendments and their finding information and then go to our print collection to see what those changes were. Given that the date we're looking for is the summer of 1999, we'll look at the post-1997 list and scroll to see section 33.1.

- [Meghan] So from this, I can see that section 33.1 was brought into force on June 29, 1999 and then reenacted in 2011 which means we don't even have to look at the other table and furthermore, the version of the Act that existed before November of 2011 is the same as the Act that was passed in 1999. So based on those conclusions, I think I might be done.

- [Rebecca] Glad to hear it.

- [Meghan] Well, Rebecca, you have been enormously helpful, as always. Thank you so much.

- [Rebecca] You're welcome, Meghan. That brings us to the end of this tutorial. If you have any additional questions, please don't hesitate to contact us here at Courthouse Libraries BC.