Welcome to the website for the British North America Legislative Database. This database includes characteristics of all the legislation passed by the pre-Confederation assemblies of eastern British North America: Nova Scotia (1758-1867); Cape Breton (1785-1820); Prince Edward Island (1768-1867); New Brunswick (1786-1867); Lower Canada (1792-1838); Upper Canada (1792-1840), the United Canadas (1841-1867); and Newfoundland (1832-1867).

This database is hosted by the Atlantic Canada Studies Centre and the Centre for Digital Scholarship, both located at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Funding for this project is made possible by Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Atlantic Canada Studies held by Elizabeth Mancke (2012-2019).

PLEASE NOTE: This site is under construction, and legislative acts are still being added. Acts currently available are:

Cape Breton (1785-1820) COMPLETE
Lower Canada (1792-1838) COMPLETE
New Brunswick (1786-1867) COMPLETE
Newfoundland (1833 -1867) COMPLETE
Nova Scotia (1758-1867) from 1758 to 1825**
Upper Canada (1792-1840) COMPLETE
United Canadas (1841-1867) from 1841 to 1856

**The years 1778-1782 & 1793-1804 were drawn from Uniacke's 1805 "Statutes at Large passed in the several General Assemblies held in His Majesty's Province of Nova Scotia," and in many cases consist of a title without the complete act. These have been included, and will be replaced with the complete act once they have been located. Please have patience, this may require considerable time as travel will likely be required - something which is not easily undertaken during a pandemic.

UPCOMING: 
Prince Edward Island

The content labelled as "complete" is available for viewing in its entirety; however, in some cases, it has not yet had "concepts" tags added and/or been edited. Those processes are still underway. We thank you for your patience and encourage you to return often as new content is being loaded and edited every day.

CURRENTLY BEING EDITED: United Canada; Nova Scotia