Search Tips
To search Supreme Court judgments, you must use the search engine
provided for judgments.
To search Supreme Court of Canada Case Information, please consult
the section entitled Cases.
To search the Supreme Court Internet site, type in a few descriptive words
and press the Enter key (or click the Search button) for a list of relevant
documents. Since the search engine only returns documents that contain all
the words in your query, refining or narrowing your search is as simple as
adding more words to the search terms you have already entered. Your new query
will return a smaller subset of the pages the search engine found for your
original "too-broad" query.
Automatic "and" Queries
By default, the search engine only returns pages that include all of your
search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms. Keep
in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search
results. To restrict a search further, just include more terms.
Synonyms
To look for synonyms or similar words, use the operator OR (uppercase). Google
will look for one or the other but not necessarily both.
Capitalization and accents
Searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type
them, will be understood as lower case.
By default, the search engine does not take into account the accents or
other diacritics (é, à, ï, ô, ç...). Thus,
the terms [français] et [francais] find the same pages.
Phrase Searches
Sometimes you'll only want results that include an exact phrase. In this
case, simply put quotations marks around your search terms.
Exclusions
Automatic exclusion of common words
The search engine ignores common words such as "where" and "how"
because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results.
If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include
it by putting a "+" sign in front of it.
To exclude words
Limit your search by using the minus sign (-) in front of a word to exclude
it from the search.
Examples:
court -supreme
policy -"financial management"
Word Variations (Stemming)
To provide the most accurate results, the search engine does not use "stemming"
or support "wildcard" searches. In other words, it searches for
the exact words that you enter in the search box. Searching for "tax"
or "tax*" will not yield "taxes" or "taxation".
If in doubt, try both forms: "regulation" and "regulations",
for instance.
