Consolidated Nova Scotia Regulations

What are regulations?

Regulations are laws. They outline rights, and create duties, obligations and responsibilities for the persons that are affected by them. Sometimes they are referred to as "delegated" or "subordinate" legislation. They have the same binding legal effect as Statutes (see below), but are made on behalf of the Legislature by persons or bodies to whom the Legislature has delegated its law-making power – such as the Governor in Council (the Lieutenant Governor acting on the advice of cabinet), a Minister, or an administrative body or agency.

What are Statutes?

Statutes (or "Acts", as they are often called) are laws enacted by the Legislature, which consists of the Lieutenant Governor and the House of Assembly. Go to the Legislative Counsel website for the text of Nova Scotia's statutes or bills.

Please note: The Office of the Registrar of Regulations publishes regulations only.

---

About Consolidations

A “consolidation” refers to a set of regulations that has been prepared (“consolidated”) by the Office of the Registrar of Regulations to include all amendments to the original regulations (the “base regulation”) that have been filed with the Registrar.

Details about the base regulation and all amendments are noted in the consolidation as follows:

if consolidated before 2018: in a note beneath the amended provision

if consolidated 2018 or later: in a reference table appended to the consolidation.

Please note that our consolidations are unofficial. The official text of the law is contained in the Orders or Orders in Council the consolidations are prepared from.

Topics on this page:

• Example of our consolidation heading
• How amendments are noted in the consolidation
  • Inline legislative history notations
  • Legislative history reference tables
  • Examples of reference tables
• Availability of regulations
• Updates to site
• Formatting and browsers
• Our disclaimer

Example of our consolidation heading

The original regulation number and the latest amending regulation number are always found at the beginning of our consolidations:

Hypothetical Regulations
made under Section 100 of the
Hypothetical Act
S.N.S. 1990, c. 100
O.I.C. 2010-1 (effective January 1, 2010), N.S. Reg. 1/2010
as amended to O.I.C. 2016-123 (effective July 1, 2016), N.S. Reg. 75/2016

Thus, the Hypothetical Regulations originated with the base regulation N.S. Reg. 1/2010 and are consolidated up to N.S. Reg. 75/2016, with the dates indicating the date the regulations come into force*. “As amended to” indicates that the regulation has been amended, and the N.S. reg. number listed is the most recent amendment included in the consolidation.

(*Note: for regulations consolidated before 2018, the heading indicates the date the regulation was made and, if the effective date is different, the effective date.)

O.I.C. means Order in Council—an order of the Governor in Council.

N.S. Reg. means Nova Scotia Regulation—followed by the regulation number assigned by the Office of the Registrar of Regulations.

How amendments are noted in the consolidation

Inline legislative history notations

Inline notations are placed immediately after the provision that is affected by the change, and specify what was changed, along with the O.I.C. and N.S. Reg. number for the amendment.

Suppose that our Hypothetical Regulations are amended to change the wording of Section 3, replace Section 6 and repeal clause 11(2)(c). The consolidation would show the amended Section 3 and the new Section 6 and delete clause 11(2)(c). The legislative notations would set out the details about the amendments, as follows:

3   This is hypothetical Section 3, which has been amended.
Section 3 amended: O.I.C. 2016-123, N.S. Reg. 75/2016.

6   This is hypothetical Section 6, which has been replaced.
Section 6 replaced: O.I.C. 2016-123, N.S. Reg. 75/2016.

(Inline note indicating the repeal of clause 11(2)(c))
Clause 11(2)(c) repealed: O.I.C. 2016-123, N.S. Reg. 75/2016.

Legislative history reference tables

Reference tables appended to a consolidation consist of several tables setting out the legislative history of the consolidation. Deleting the inline legislative history notations means that the text is no longer broken up or cluttered with notations, making it more readable. The reference tables not only take the place of these history notations, but also collect much more information about the regulations in one place.

Source Law table: lists the base regulation and each amendment to the base regulation, setting out its N.S. Reg. number, when and how it came into force, and its publication date in the Royal Gazette Part 2. This table also includes future amendments that have been registered with the office, but are not yet included in the consolidation.

Amendments by provision table: shows details for each amendment, listed in numerical order according to the numbers of the provisions of the regulations that are amended. This information is similar to the information previously recorded in the Sectional Index to the Royal Gazette Part II (no longer published).

Editorial notes and corrections table: lists any editorial notes and corrections related to the consolidation, such as changes made by statute that affect the regulations, changes to the administering department, or comments or explanations for information in other tables. Many of these types of comments were previously found inline in the text in pre-2018 consolidations.

Repealed and superseded table: lists the base regulation of any previous regulations that the current consolidation replaces.

Examples of reference tables

For our Hypothetical Regulations, the first two tables in the reference tables would look like this:

Source Law

The current consolidation of the Hypothetical Regulations made under the Hypothetical Act includes all of the following regulations:

Amendments by Provision

(For more information about consolidations and reference tables, check out “The Office of the Registrar of Regulations: An Overview of its Role, Practices and Procedures.)

Availability of regulations

The full text of most of Nova Scotia's regulations are available online. If the regulations are available online, you will see a link to the online version next to the name of the regulations in the Regulations by Act index.

Not included are:

• some regulations that were dispensed from publication by the Governor in Council
• some regulations with a limited application
• portions of regulations that consist of forms, graphics or other heavily formatted pages (there will be an editorial note in the text indicating where this occurs).

If there is no online version of the regulations you require, or you want a copy of the paper document, you can order copies from us, or view the regulations at a public library or our offices.

Updates to site

New regulation numbers are entered into the Regulations by Act index within 24 hours of filing at the Office of the Registrar of Regulations. The full text of the new or amended regulations is uploaded later, within 2 weeks of publication in the Royal Gazette Part II. When we enter the new regulation information, we place a note under the regulation listing indicating the update until the full-text version of the new regulations or consolidation is available.

Formatting and browsers

Formatting of the HTML versions of the regulations may differ from that of the official, printed versions. If the text is flush-left without indentation, it may be more difficult to follow. Our Style and Procedures Manual contains information on the numbering and lettering system used for regulations.

Please let us know if you encounter any difficulties in viewing this site.

Our disclaimer

Every set of regulations reproduced on this site contains the following disclaimer, which must not be removed:

This consolidation is unofficial and is for reference only. For the official version of the regulations, consult the original documents on file with the Office of the Registrar of Regulations, or refer to the Royal Gazette Part II.
Regulations are amended frequently. Please check the list of Regulations by Act to see if there are any recent amendments to these regulations filed with our office that are not yet included in this consolidation.
Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this electronic version, the Office of the Registrar of Regulations assumes no responsibility for any discrepancies that may have resulted from reformatting.
This electronic version is copyright © [year], Province of Nova Scotia, all rights reserved. It is for your personal use and may not be copied for the purposes of resale in this or any other form.