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(Go to a list of recapitulations of citation styles for Canadian court cases.)

Not surprisingly, the legal system in Canada is derived from English common law, except in Québec, where the provincial system of civil law is based on the French Code Napoléon. The federal judiciary is headed by the Supreme Court of Canada, made up of a chief justice and eight puisne (associate) judges, three of whom must come from Québec. It sits in Ottawa and is the final Canadian appellate court for all civil, criminal, and constitutional cases. The next leading tribunal, the Federal Court of Canada, is divided into a Trial Division and an Appellate Division. It hears a variety of cases, notably involving claims against the federal government. Provincial courts are established by the provincial legislatures, and, although the names of the courts are not uniform, each province has a similar three-tiered court system. Judges of the Supreme Court and the Federal Court and almost all judges of the higher provincial courts are appointed by the federal government.

Go to (1) style of cause, (2) year of decision, (3) volume number, (4) reporter abbreviations, (5) series, (6) page number of case, (7) pinpoint reference, (8) parallel citations, (9) jurisdictions and court names, (10) names of judges or justices, and (11) case history.

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Eleven elements compose a full citation to a Canadian court case, but very seldom would a citation include all eleven elements.

• When the style of cause (usually the names of the parties) is included in the text of an article, it does not need to be repeated in the footnote reference.
• Although the names of the parties are displayed in italics, the abbreviation v. (for versus, meaning against), which separate the parties, is not. (If you see a c. instead of a v., then you are reading a citation in French, not English.)
• Capitalize the first letter of a party name and the first letter of all words other than prepositions connectives, and words in procedural phrases.
• The names of the parties should be identical to those used in the first reporter when parallel citations are used. If other reporters use a name different from the first reporter listed in the citation, then resort to the sub nom. rule. This rule asserts that names different from those of the first-cited reporter should be placed in parenthesis and introduced with the term sub nom. displayed in italics.
• Omit expressions like et al., which indicated there are multiple parties.
• Shorten In the matter of to in re and Dans l'affaire de to Re, but write out in full Ex parte.
• Use the phrase Reference Re to introduce a constitutional reference.
• Do not use the given (first) name of persons unless they form part of the name of a corporation or business firm, but give compound surnames (e.g., Smith-Hinds) in full.
• Omit The, Le, La, L, Les as the first word of a party name.
• Refer to the Crown as R. in criminal cases, to the Mninister of National Revenue as M.N.R., the Attorney General as A.G.
• Omit State of, People of, Government of, but place City of, County of, District of, and Township of in parentheses after the place name.
• Omit Inc., Ltd., or Ltée when the name of the party also contains the word Co. (or Cie) to avoid redundancy. Retain, however Inc., Ltd., or Ltée after Bros., Ass'n, Industries, and other such phrases that do not sufficiently indicate the part has corporate status.
• Omit terms like Board of Trustees of and Governors of and cite only the name of the institution itself.
• When possible, abbreviate the name of a union to that in Labour Canada's annual Directory of Labour Organizations in Canada.

(2) Year of decision: After the style of cause, place the year the case was decided within parentheses followed by a comma. The year of decision can be omitted for certain reporters that are listed first in your citation. If the volume number of the first reporter in your citation is the same as the year of the decision, then you do not need to include the year of the decision.

(3) Volume numbers: Include the volume number of reporters organized by year in square brackets and place it before the name of the reporter. For reporters organized solely by volume number, put a comma after closed parenthesis of the year of decision and place the volume number after the comma,

(4) Reporter: Reporter names are abbreviated and they follow the volume number. Since there are more than 100 Canadian law reporters, all their abbreviation are not listed here. A full list can be found in appendix 2 of Canadian guide to Uniform Legal Citation. Some of the more common or important ones, however, are included in the table below.

(5) Series: Some reporters are published in more than one series. If so, then place the series ordinal number within parentheses after the name of the reporter and before the page number. Use these abbreviations: 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, and N.S. (for new series).

(6) Page number: This element is the number of the first page of the case as it appears in the relevant reporter. It is not the page number on which appears a passage being quoted, paraphrased, or referred to in the text of an article. Since case citations do not include the range of pages, readers of a citation are unable to determine how many pages long is the case.

(7) Pinpoint: Unlike the page number of the previous element, the pinpoint number is the number of the page on which appears a passage being quoted, paraphrased, or referred to in the text of an article. The pinpoint number is easily distinguished because if follows the preposition at. (Do not place a comma before this preposition.) Thus, writers are to list first the page number at which the case begins and secondly, when desired, the page number on which appears the source matter being documented.

(8) Parallel citations: At times, cases are printed in more than one reporter. In such cases, writers are encouraged to cite all the reporters printing the case at issue because readers may have access to only one of these reporters. This system is much preferred to the general practice in the United States, which is to include only the official reporter for the obvious reasons that not all readers have access to official reporters. Still, official (or semi-official as the case my be) reporters are to be listed first in parallel citations. A list of the official and semi-official reporters can be found in appendix 1 of Canadian guide to Uniform Legal Citation. In addition, general reporters are listed before specific ones just as reporters covering a larger geographical area are listed before those covering a smaller one. The sub nom. rule applies when parallel citations are listed. This rule asserts that names different from those of the first-cited reporter should be placed in parenthesis and introduced with the term sub nom. displayed in italics.

(9) Jurisdiction and court: Jurisdiction refers to the authority of the court. There are sixteen jurisdictions in Canada, and their abbreviations are exhibited in the table below. If the jurisdiction of the court is obvious from the title of the reporter, then the jurisdiction can be left out. The Nova Scotia Reporter, for example, has jurisdiction only in Nova Scotia; therefore, if the Nova Scotia Reporter is listed in the citation, then its jurisdiction can be left out.

There exist nearly 80 courts and divisions of courts in Canada, and their names and abbreviations can be found in appendix 4 of Canadian guide to Uniform Legal Citation. A few examples are listed in the table below

(10) Judge: Names of judges are not required, but if they are included, then they are placed at the end of the citation, preceded by a comma. Use the surname followed by a space and an abbreviation of the judge's office. The table below exhibits the five abbreviations. The jurisdiction of a Chief Justice may be followed without intervening punctuation or spaces by an indication of the jurisdiction, e.g., C.J.C. or C.J.P.E.I.

(11) History of case: Include the subsequent history of a case only if it is relevant to the discussion at hand. Put it at the end of the citation and introduce subseqent history with either aff'd for affirmed or rev'd for reversed and prior history with either aff'g for affirming or rev'g for reversing.. These introductions refer, not necessarily to the case listed immediately before it, but to the first case listed in the citation.

Masson v. Kelly (1991), 85 D.L.R. (4th) 214 (Ont.C.A.)

In the example immediately above, the surnames of the parties are Masson and Kelly. They are displayed in italics and separated by v., which is displayed in a roman typeface. The surnames and the v. together constitute the style of cause. The number 1991 enclosed within parentheses represents the year the case was decided. The volume number of the reporter is 85, the name of the reporter is Dominion Law Reports, the series of the report is the fourth, and the case begins on page 214 of this reporter. The jurisdiction of the court is Ontario and court is the Court of Appeals

In the example immediately above, R. is the abbreviation for the crown and the surname of the other party is Landry. They are displayed in italics and separated by v., which is displayed in a roman typeface. The surnames and the v. together constitute the style of cause. The year the case was decided, 1991, is enclosed within square brackets because the reporter is organized by year not by volume number; nevertheless, because the reporter is Canada Supreme Court Reports, the volume number--in this case 1--follows. The number 99 represents the page number at which the case begins whereas the number 110 represents the page on which can be found the matter referenced by the footnote. Following the pinpoint cite (110) is a parallel citation. Thus, this case can also be found in volume 62 of Canadian Criminal Cases, the third series, beginning at page 117. A pinpoint citation is not presented for the parallel cite. Lamar is the Chief Justice who wrote the opinion.