Bijuralism and Bilingualism Today

Today, a key characteristic of the Canadian legal system is its bijural nature.  That is, from the perspective of formal, Western-style law, Canada has two legal systems: the common law and the civil law.  Canada is also officially bilingual.  So legal proceedings (and all federal legislation and regulations) occur in both English and French.  At the federal level, work is being done to harmonize our legal traditions and to ensure that French and English versions of legislation and regulations are interpreted and applied in a manner consistent with each other.

The federal government has developed webpages to explain the nature of the Canadian legal system and to explain bijuralism and harmonization.  Click on the links below for data about these resources.