Template talk:Cite CanLII

Suggestion
This looks like it might be a very useful template. However, it appears to be restricted to the Canadian federal courts, and Canlii is a great source for cases coming from the provincial superior and appellate courts as well. For example, Canlii's Ontario Court of Appeal citation for Re Indalex Limited is 2011 ONCA 265, but this template does not pull it up because it constructs the URL to look for "ca" instead of "on" in creating http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2011/2011onca265/2011onca265.html. Could the "juris" field be modified to default to "ca", unless a more appropriate two-letter designation (in this case, "on") is inserted?Raellerby (talk) 12:45, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Provide me with a list of (1) a sample URL of a case from each of the courts that you would like included with the template, and (2) the name of a Wikipedia article about each court, if available. As for the default jurisdiction suggestion, I think it might be a good idea not to have such a default as some editors may not want the template to display the jurisdiction. You can always specify a jurisdiction using the parameter juris or type " " for the template to display the court and jurisdiction automatically. — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅: no problem, I figured it out. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It works quite well. Many thanks.Raellerby (talk) 20:21, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I spoke too soon. Canada (Minister of Indian Affairs & Northern Development) v. Curragh Inc., 1994 CanLII 7468 (ON SC), which links to http://canlii.ca/en/on/onsc/doc/1994/1994canlii7468/1994canlii7468.html, bombs out when inserted into this template. The case refers to the old Ontario Supreme Court, which Canlii collates under the Ontario Superior Court of Justice cases.Raellerby (talk) 22:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * * Sigh * This is due to a lack of uniformity in the URLs used by CanLII. OK, let me look into it. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:47, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅: OK, see if it's working. You need to add " " as mentioned in the updated documentation. — SMUconlaw (talk) 14:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Canlii references re Federal Court: FC vs FCT
I just updated the prior history of Kirkbi AG v. Ritvik Holdings Inc., and noticed that the template generates a reference for Kirkbi AG v. Ritvik Holdings Inc., 2002 FCT 585 (CanLII) that points to http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2002/2002fct585/2002fc585.html, which is an incorrect URL. I tried to fix the template, but noticed that it was scrambling later references in other cases. On investigation, I see that FCT changed over to FC in the neutral citations starting with cases in July 2003.

Is there an easy fix for this?Raellerby (talk) 11:47, 8 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I think the only way is to include another parameter such as format. To use the template with the pre-July 2003 cases, one would then have to add " ". I did this for cite BAILII. Would you like me to fix this? Just to be clear – the URLs use "fct" before July 2003 and "fc" after that date? — SMUconlaw (talk) 14:03, 8 January 2013 (UTC)


 * That is correct, after searching the CanLII database to confirm when the cutoff took place.Raellerby (talk) 16:53, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ – I've updated the template (see the Template:Cite CanLII/testcases subpage), and will get around to updating the documentation later. To use it, just add " ". — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:02, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

accessdate
It would be very nice if this template could incorporate a accessdate like so many other citation templates to indicate when the URL was accessed. It just look more consistent when used alongside other citation templates that incorporate such a parameter.  Imzadi 1979  →   07:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Is this really necessary? The LII websites are intended to be permanent, which means that it doesn't matter exactly when the content was accessed. I'd like to hear more views on this before making any changes. — SMUconlaw (talk) 12:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Quebec cases in French only
When doing some research for Seigneurial system of New France, I came across some interesting Quebec cases to reference, but the template could not access them as they were in French only. It defaults to URLs for English-language versions, but Quebec does not go for full parallel translation as the federal courts do. Examples include:


 * 1) Forgues Dion c. Officier de la publicité des droits de la circonscription foncière de Québec, 2005 CanLII 7532 (QC CS), located at http://www.canlii.org/fr/qc/qccs/doc/2005/2005canlii7532/2005canlii7532.html
 * 2) 4345126 Canada inc. (Réserve de La Petite Nation inc.) c. Bruneau, 2014 QCCA 1882, located at http://www.canlii.org/fr/qc/qcca/doc/2014/2014qcca1882/2014qcca1882.html

I used a shortcut version to insert these in, together with. It would be nice if this template could handle such situations.Raellerby (talk) 10:05, 22 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Is the URL format for French judgments identical to the one for English judgments? (For example, the French version is http://www.canlii.org/fr/qc/qccs/doc/2005/2005canlii7532/2005canlii7532.html, and the English version http://www.canlii.org/en/qc/qccs/doc/2005/2005canlii7532/2005canlii7532.html.) If so, it shouldn't be too difficult to include an additional language parameter. If the format is not the same, then kindly provide examples of all the French variations you wish to have included in the template. — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

FC/FCT
Good day. While doing research for Canadian nationality law I also noticed the FC/FCT problem: the template is unable to generate a correct URL in cases that only the first parameter uses FCT while the subsequent parameters have only FC in them. For example, in the case Dufour v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2013 FC 340, the template can generate either https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2013/2013fct340/2013fc340.html or https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fc/doc/2013/2013fc340/2013fc340.html while the correct URL is https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2013/2013fc340/2013fc340.html. The problem seems to be that when changing  from fc to fct, the /fct/ part in the URL concurrently changes with the case number part (/2013fct340/). Changing the  does not fix the problem at all.

Any suggestions or fixes? Thanks. C-GAUN (talk) 00:14, 9 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing this error out. Let me have a look at it over the next few days. — SGconlaw (talk) 20:31, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi,, can you confirm if the URL format that you indicated above is consistent in CanLII? In other words, does .../fct/... always appear first in the URL, followed by ...fc... later on? — SGconlaw (talk) 17:56, 14 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi . After a bit of digging I found that cases decided on or before 30 June 2003 has case numbers with FCT in them, and hence their URLs are formatted in .../fct/... followed by ...fct... (e.g., Yee v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2003 FCT 817, the last case with FCT as the Federal Court's abbreviation, has URL as https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2003/2003fct817/2003fct817.html). Since 1 July 2003, the FCT in the case number has been replaced by FC for some reason, and the URL format is changed to .../fct/... followed by ...fc... (e.g., Agbakuru v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2003 FC 818, was the first case with the new format, and the URL is https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2003/2003fc818/2003fc818.html). Hope this helps, and thanks so much for looking into this. C-GAUN (talk) 20:37, 14 July 2017 (UTC)


 * OK, I think I have fixed the issue. For older cases with URLs in the format .../fct/... followed by ...fct..., 1 needs to be added. If this parameter is omitted, the template creates a URL in the format .../fct/... followed by ...fc... . I have documented this, and added Yee v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) as an example on the documentation page. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:03, 16 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Looks like it's all fixed now. Thanks so much for your help professor. C-GAUN (talk) 04:13, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * You're most welcome. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:35, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Missing comma?
I'm relatively new to Canadian legal citations, but shouldn't there be a comma between the case title and neutral citation? Ex. R. v. Oakes, 1986 CanLII 46..., not R. v. Oakes 1986 CanLII 46... 01:41, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think a comma is necessary. — SGconlaw (talk) 06:00, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't have a copy of the McGill Guide on hand, but every site I've found explaining/quoting it (ex. ) indicates the usage of a comma to separate the case name and first citation.   04:21, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
 * +1. There should be a comma between the litigants and the citation. The appropriate format is X v Y, [insert neutral citation here], [insert parallel citation(s) here] . I'd make the change myself, but as this template is transcluded in 300+ pages, wanted to flag here before making the leap. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 21:14, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Please implement the change described above (add a comma after the case title/litigants and before the neutral citation). Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:00, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Ping me if I broke anything. I tested it in the sandbox and on the testcases page (which is very nice compared to many templates, so thank you for that!). – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:41, 22 December 2020 (UTC)