APA & Legal Citations

APA Publication Manual 7th Edition grounds its recommendations for citing legal documents on American Legal styles such as the Bluebook. Given  the differences in Canadian and American legal systems, the foundation for Canadian legal citations is known as The McGill Guide. 

The following guidelines for citing legal documents such as court cases, Acts, Bills and Charters in APA style are based off those presented by Camosun College.

Note on Titles and Italics

• Titles are always italicized in McGill style.
• In APA style, only the in-text citation for a court case is italicized. All other titles are not italicized.

**Discuss with your instructor what their preference for titles are

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Court Cases

Template for an in-text citation

(Name v. Name, year)

Template for a website reference list entry

Name v. Name, year Court Case Number. www.websiteName.ca

Example

Canada Post Corp. v. Lépine, 2009 SCC 16. https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2009/2009scc16/2009scc16.html

• In this example, we see that this case was the 16th case tried in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2009

Template for a printed case reporter reference list entry

Name v. Name, Volume Source Page (Court Date).

Example

Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. Canada (Justice), 131 D.L.R (4th) 486 (BCSC 1996).

• In this example, the case was found in volume 131 of D.L.R (series 4) page 486. 
• Note that only the first page of the case is used for physical copies, not a page range. 
• This case was tried in the British Columbia Supreme Court (BCSC in 1996)

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Acts

Template for an in-text citation

(Title of Act, year)

Template for a reference list entry

Title, version chapter (year). www.websiteName.ca

• If the title of an act is especially long, you can shorten it to 2-3 words for your in-text citations

Example

Health Professions Act, R.S.A. (2000). https://kings-printer.alberta.ca/documents/acts/h07.pdf

• "R.S.A."  stands for "Revised Statutes of Alberta"

Indian Act, R.S.C., c.1-5 (1985). https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/I-5.pdf

• "R.S.C" stands for "Revised Statutes of Canada"
   

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Bills

Template for an in-text citation

(Bill#, year)

Template (McGill guide):

Bill#, Title of Bill, session, legislature, jurisdiction, year, paragraph/clause/etc. (additional information). www.websiteName.ca

Examples

C-38, Act to amend the Indian Act (new registration entitlements), 1st Sess, 44th Parl, 2022 (first reading 14, December 2022). https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-38/first-reading

C-51, Anti-terrorism Act, 2nd Sess, 41 Parl, 2015, cl 5(1)(assented to 18, June 2015) SC 2015, c. 20. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/annualstatutes/2015_20/FullText.html#:~:text=The%20purpose%20of%20this%20Act,undermine%20the%20security%20of%20Canada.

• C- or S- before a bill's number indicates whether the bill originated in the House of Commons (C-) or the Senate (S-).
• You may need to scroll down on a document to find a "Shortened Title" of the bill.
• Legislature = which parliament the bill was passed under (usually found in the top of the document). In the examples above, the bills were passed during the first session of the 44th parliament, and the second session of the 41st parliament respectfully.
• In the second example, "SC 2015, c. 20" indicates that the bill is from the 2015 Statues of Canada, chapter 20. 
• For information on how bills become laws, check out this webpage from the Parliament of Canada: How a Bill Becomes a Law

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Charters

Only in-text citations are required for charters. For example, if we cited the United Nations Charter:

Template

U.N. Charter article. #, para. #

Examples

Parenthetical:

... (U.N. Charter art. 4, para. 2).

Narrative:

Article 4, paragraph 2 of the United Nations Charter states that....

[Note: more on charters can be found on page 368 of the APA 7th edition manual.]

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These guidelines were largely influenced by the Camosun College APA legal citations guide as well as the Camosun McGill style guide