Report no. 91 - marginal notes . : YC3-1/0-421-3E-PDF

"In January 2016, a new layout was adopted for the consolidation of federal Acts and regulations maintained on the Justice Laws Website. This was done in concert with a change to the layout of Bills introduced to Parliament and regulations enacted under federal statutory authority. The new layout for the consolidated Acts and regulations, however, was at the same time also applied to all Acts and regulations enacted before January 2016. One feature of the new layout is that material that formerly appeared as marginal notes has been moved to the body of the text in a manner indistinguishable from headings or subheadings. Although the stated intent of the new format is not to change the wording or meaning of the legislation, but simply to make it more accessible, the change of marginal notes into headings has a more substantive effect. Section 14 of the Interpretation Act provides that marginal notes form no part of the enactment, but are inserted for convenience of reference only. This means that they should not be relied upon to interpret the meaning of the enactment. This is not the case with respect to headings, which are considered part of the enactment. This being the case, the transformation of marginal notes into headings effectively amends legislation by adding new elements to it. At the very least, the different weight given to marginal notes and headings as tools of interpretation leads to the conclusion that the meaning of the legislation has been altered"--p. 1, 2.

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