Regulations (BC) - publication in BC Gazette

Last revised September 13, 2022

As per the preface to the Index of Current B.C. Regulations (1958 to December 31, 1983):

"The original Regulations Act, enacted March 20, 1958, by c. 49, S.B.C. 1958, for the first time required that all regulations as defined in the Act be filed with the Registrar and published in the B.C. Gazette. Accordingly, for the purpose, a separate Part II of the B.C. Gazette was inaugurated on April 17, 1958, wherein the regulations are published as required. The Act further provided that "Every regulation in effect when this Act comes into force shall be filed with the Registrar on or before the thirty-first day of December 1959."

Accordingly, in the Index it will be noted that frequently the earliest regulations filed under an Act are dated 1958 or 1959, and this Index includes all regulations filed since March 20, 1958, which are still in effect.

Prior to 1958 only those regulations were published in the Gazette which were required by the statute under which they were made to be so published. These were not given regulation numbers, but were published in the Gazette under the Order-in-Council number under which they were made.

Although section 10 of the original Act required every regulation in effect when the Act came into force to be filed before December 31, 1959, many regulations in effect at that date were not so filed. The Regulation Act, (enacted September 1, 1973 and revised as c. 361, R.S.B.C. 1979), provided that "A regulation made before September 1, 1973 ceases to have effect after December 1, 1973 unless it is filed under this Act or was filed under the Act repealed by this Act." It will be noted that such regulations are referred to in the Index by Order in Council number only where they have been amended by a regulation made after 1959. (Strictly speaking, neither the Order nor its amendment has any effect.)

On October 26, 1983, the present Regulations Act (1983, c. 10) came into force. For the first time a "key word" in the empowering statute gives the clue to whether or not an order is a regulation. Because of this change, many orders which were previously filed as regulations no longer meet the definition and thus have been removed from this index. Under the new Act, also, the day of deposit becomes the effective date for most regulations, rather than the day after filing."