Canadian Law

Parallel citations

Cases on Westlaw Next Canada and CanLII include parallel citations, so it is an easy way to find if your case is in an official law report series, or other report, for the purpose of citing the case appropriately.

For example:

Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v Saskatchewan is a Canadian Supreme Court case that has the following parallel citations:  2015 SCC 4; 2015 CSC 4; [2015] 1 SCR 245; [2015] 3 WWR 1; [2015] SCJ No 4; 2015 CLLC 220-014; 248 LAC (4th) 271; 249 ACWS (3d) 324; 328 CRR (2d) 1; 380 DLR (4th) 577; 451 Sask R 1; 467 NR 3; 628 WAC 1; JE 2015-186; DTE 2015T-88; and 2015 CarswellSask 32. 

This decision has been published in the authorised Supreme Court Reports (SCR), and this is the version you should find and cite. 

For AGLC citation purposes, the preferred versions to cite are, in priority order:

1. official/authorised report series eg: the Supreme Court Reports (SCR)
2. generalist unofficial report series covering a wide geographic area eg: the Dominion Law Reports (DLR)
3. generalist unofficial report series covering one Province eg: Saskatchewan Reports (Sask R)
4. specialist unofficial law report series eg: Canadian Rights Reporter, Second Series (CRR (2nd))
5. unreported
   - Medium neutral citation eg: Supreme Court Cases (SCC)
   - Versions on eg: CanLII or Westlaw Next Canada eg: CarswellSask
   - Note: CanLII is open access and this is preferred over commercial sources such as Westlaw or Lexis