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Communauté des biens (community of property), term used in the legal codes of NEW FRANCE and Québec to describe the pooled assets of husband and wife. It began as part of the Coutume de Paris, introduced about 1640 and the sole legal code of the colony after 1664.

Coutume de Paris, the customary law of the Prévoté et Vicomté de Paris (written 1510; revised 1580), was a code of law first introduced to what is now Canada by the COMPAGNIE DES CENT-ASSOCIÉS in 1627.

The Constitution of Canada is the country’s governing legal framework. It defines the powers of the executive branches of government and of the legislatures at both the federal and provincial levels. Canada’s Constitution is not one legal document. It is a complex mix of statutes, orders, British and Canadian court decisions, and generally accepted practices known as constitutional conventions. The Constitution has been in constant evolution from colonial times to the present day. The story of the Constitution is the story of Canada itself. It reflects the shifting legal, social and political pressures facing Canadians, as well as their choices as a society.

Environmental law is a relatively new field of law comprising laws designed to protect the natural environment.

Traditional Christian concepts of marriage dominated Canadian society since the founding of the country. Since the end of the Second World War, however, these customs and norms have changed considerably.

This term is used to describe rights which protect the results of intellectual and creative activity: items such as a new product, a book or painting, or a marketing slogan.

Commercial law is that branch of private law concerned primarily with the supply of goods or services by merchants and other businesses for profit. Textbooks on commercial law frequently differ on the range of topics treated in them.

Law reform is the process of ensuring that law meets the needs of the society it is designed to serve. The process may involve updating by repealing old and obsolete enactments, consolidating or rationalizing an area of law, or even proposing entirely new concepts.

Law of the Sea, for about 300 years, was to a large extent determined by principles of customary law. Coastal states claimed sovereignty over a narrow belt of territorial sea; on the rest of the seas (the "high seas"), the basic principle of freedom of the seas reigned.

Criminal procedure is an integral but distinct part of CRIMINAL LAW in Canada.

The King-Byng Affair was a constitutional crisis that happened in 1926. It pitted the powers of a prime minister against the powers of a governor general. It began when Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King asked Governor General Lord Julian Byng to dissolve Parliament and call a new election. Byng refused. It ended with King winning another election. Since then, no governor general has publicly refused the advice of a prime minister.

This article is a plain-language summary of the King-Byng Affair. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry: King-Byng Affair.

Property, in the legal sense, can mean real property in the form of land and buildings, or personal, movable property. Property law — whether under the common law in most of Canada, or the Civil Code in Quebec — deals with a wide range of rights and obligations owing to individuals and governments, and has evolved enormously, particularly in fairness to women, since the 19th Century.

The branch of law concerned with the supply of goods and services in the most comprehensive sense for the personal use or consumption of individuals and their families is called consumer law.

In 1987, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney attempted to win Quebec’s consent to the revised Canadian Constitution. The result was the Meech Lake Accord. It was an agreement between the federal and provincial governments to amend (change) the Constitution. The Accord proposed strengthening provincial powers and declaring Quebec a “distinct society.” The Accord was never put into effect. Political support for it unravelled in 1990. Many Québécois saw the Accord’s failure in English Canada as a rejection of Quebec. Support for separatism soared in Quebec and led to the 1995 Quebec Referendum.

Employment law in Canada generally refers to the law governing the relationship of an individual employee to an employer, as distinguished from labour law, the law of unionized collective bargaining relationships. Employment law includes both the common, or judge-made, law of "master and servant," which is concerned mainly with wrongful dismissal, and a complex mass of statute law dealing with minimum labour standards, human rights, occupational health and safety and workers' compensation.

In Canada, the public promotion of hate against identifiable groups and the advocacy of genocide is, under certain conditions, a criminal offence, punishable by up to 2 years' imprisonment.

Organized crime is defined in the Criminal Code as a group of three or more people whose purpose is the commission of one or more serious offences that would “likely result in the direct or indirect receipt of a material benefit, including a financial benefit, by the group.” Organized crime centres on illegal means of making money, such as gambling; prostitution; pornography; drug trafficking; insurance and construction fraud; illegal bankruptcy; motor vehicle theft; computer crime; and counterfeiting, among many others. The structure, sophistication and widespread nature of organized crime first became evident in the 1960s and 1970s. Some criminal organizations are based on ethnicity, such as the Italian Mafia and Chinese triads. Others are founded within certain industries (e.g., construction) or activities (e.g., biker gangs).

“Peace, order and good government” is a phrase that is used in section 91 of the British North America Act of 1867 (now called the Constitution Act, 1867). It offers a vague and broad definition of the Canadian Parliament’s lawmaking authority over provincial matters. Since Confederation, it has caused tensions between federal and provincial governments over the distribution of powers. The phrase has also taken on a value of its own with Canadians beyond its constitutional purpose. It has come to be seen as the Canadian counterpart to the American “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and the French “liberty, equality, fraternity.”