Legislation is the law that is made by elected representatives from any level of government and is comprised of bills, statutes, regulations, and other statutory instruments. Legislation is made to introduce a new law or to change or clarify existing laws.
There are three types of legislation: statutes, regulations and bylaws. Statutes and regulations can be either provincial or federal, and bylaws are municipal.
- Statutes are publicly debated by the federal parliament or provincial legislatures and voted upon before becoming law. Statutes state the broad principles or rules that govern our lives.
- Regulations, created by federal or provincial bodies, are the details that provide additional detail on how a statute will be put into practice. Regulations are made "under" statutes, and do not have to be debated publicly by legislative assemblies.
- For example, a motor vehicle statute may state there will be a maximum speed limit. The regulations under that might state the actual what the actual limit is.
- Bylaws are created by municipal bodies and, like regulations, are "delegated legislation", intended to clarify or elaborate upon provincial and federal statutes.
(Credit for some of the above section's phrasing is due to the Bora Laskin Law Library.)
