Case reporter | Abbreviation |
Supreme Court Reports | SCR |
Canadian Criminal Cases | CCC |
Canadian Criminal Reports | CCR |
Dominion Law Reports | DLR |
Ontario Reports | OR |
Rapports Juridiques du Quebec | RJQ |
Court | English | French |
Supreme Court of Canada | SCC | CSC |
Federal Court | FC | CF |
Federal Court of Appeal | FCA | CAF |
Tax Court of Canada | TCC | CCI |
Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada | CMAC | CACM |
Competition Tribunal of Canada | Comp. Trib. | Trib. conc. |
Canadian Human Rights Tribunal | CHRT | TCDP |
Public Service Labour Relations Board | PSSRB | PSSRB |
In 1999, Canadian courts began assigning neutral citations to their judgments (the start date varies depending on the court). The neutral citation is only a case identifier and does not indicate where a case can be found. It consists of three parts:
For example: Arsenault-Cameron v Prince Edward Island, 2000 SCC 1
Citations to printed/published report series are usually easy to read for those used to English practice eg
R v Seaboyer, [1991] 2 SCR 577 at 590.
Canadian practice is to cite cases by the name of the parties (italicized) separated by "v." (not italicized), year. When the year corresponds to the year of the volume (case for all relatively recent reports), the year is placed in square brackets []; when it does not (for older cases), the year is in round brackets (). If there has been more than one volume produced for a given year, this comes after the year & before the abbreviation for the report series.
A case citation ends with the page number on which the case begins, followed by the word "at" and page referenced if a pinpoint is needed.
Had the name of the report series not indicated which court decided on the case, the name of the court must be added in an abbreviated form in parentheses after the citation, before the pinpoint.
The McGill guide in the Law Bod is not the most recent edition. The central box has a link to online guide from Library of University of BC which will reflect more uptodate practice.