Historical Primary Sources: Canada

The official newspaper of the Government of Canada.

More than 70,000 Canadian Government publications digitized at Internet Archive Canada.

Includes over 1.7 million pages of historical pre-1900 colonial, provincial and federal government documents. This collection includes government acts, bills, committee reports, court rules, debates, journals, ordinances, a selection of official publications from France and Great Britain, sessional papers, regulations, royal commission reports, voter’s lists and treaties.

The 4th Earl of Minto was the Canadian Military Secretary from 1883 to 1885 and Governor General from 1898 to 1904. Major events during his time in Canada include the Riel Rebellion of 1885 and the Boer War. He also oversaw the Alaskan Boundary dispute during Theodore Roosevelt's Presidency.

This database includes characteristics of all the legislation passed by the pre-Confederation assemblies of eastern British North America.

The Speech from the Throne imparts the causes of summoning Parliament, prior to which neither House can embark on any public business.

T​he Secretary to the Cabinet prepares documents for meetings of the Cabinet, which consists of advisors to the Prime Minister of Canada. Known as Cabinet Conclusions or Cabinet minutes, these documents include agendas, lists of attendees and summaries of discussions.

Most recent years of Canadian Senate debates.

Debates of the House of Commons dating back to 1994.

Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources is a free searchable database of digitized parliamentary publications from the 1st Session of the 1st Parliament in 1867 until coverage at sencanada.ca and ourcommons.ca begins.

The Parliament of Canada in collaboration with the Library of Parliament initiated a project to reconstitute the early debates of the Senate from 1867 to 1870, and of the House of Commons for the years 1867 through 1874, using newspaper reports of the day as the source of information.

Previously, most of the papers ordered to be printed were collected and published in the Sessional Papers. This series holds a wealth of primary source material from Canada's early years. Included are reports of departments, commissions and business institutions, statistics, foreign affairs documents, maps and other documents of historical significance. Parliamentary committee reports were excluded as these were printed as appendices to the Journals.

The CanLII.org website provides access to court judgments from all Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, federal courts, and the courts in all Canada’s provinces and territories. CanLII.org also contains decisions from many federal and provincial administrative tribunals.

Canada Declassified is a digital repository of government records declassified under the Canadian Access to Information Act.