About ca-eli-mcp
ca-eli-mcp provides access to Canadian federal Acts and regulations through the Justice Laws Website. It is intended for legal research that needs consolidated text and traceable citations; documents must be identified by code or short title.
Key features
- 01Act and regulation metadata
- 02Full consolidated XML text
- 03Coverage and gap reporting
- 04Source links and readable citations
Use cases
- 01Retrieve a known federal Act by code
- 02Check an Act’s in-force status and consolidation date
- 03Inspect consolidated legislation with source citations
MCP support
Exposes tools to MCP clients for retrieving document metadata and full text, plus coverage information. Responses include source links and human-readable citations.
Configuration
Local server config is the same for every client. Copy it into your client’s MCP config file.
Tools
3Saved tool list · updated 2w ago
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| code | string | Yes | e.g. ``"C-46"`` (Criminal Code) or ``"SOR-2018-151"`` (a regulation). |
| lang | string | No | ``"eng"`` or ``"fra"`` (default ``"eng"``). |
Details
From the project READMEca-eli-mcp
MCP server for Canadian federal legislation via the Justice Laws Website (laws-lois.justice.gc.ca), the Department of Justice Canada's official source for consolidated Acts and regulations. Bilingual (English/French).
What this is not
- No free-text search - the Justice Laws Website has no search API of
its own. This connector is by-code only (the same limitation as
ie-eli-mcpfor Ireland): you need to already know the code (e.g."C-46"for the Criminal Code) or a short title to look one up. - Federal only - provincial and territorial legislation is out of scope.
- No case law - CanLII's terms of service forbid bulk redistribution and its content API requires a per-identity key, which breaks the zero-cloud pattern this connector otherwise follows. Not attempted here.
Tools
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
ca_get_document | Metadata (title, in-force status, last-consolidated date) for one act or regulation |
ca_get_text | Full consolidated XML text of the same document |
ca_coverage | Declare what this connector covers, when each family was captured, and - explicitly - what it does NOT cover. Every gap carries a fallback. |
Every response carries lex_uri (the XML source), source_url (the public
HTML page), and human_readable_citation (e.g. "Criminal Code (C-46)").
Install
pip install ca-eli-mcp
Windows 11 with Smart App Control
Smart App Control blocks unsigned executables, which covers uvx.exe, pip.exe
and the ca-eli-mcp.exe launcher that pip writes at install time. The python.exe and
py.exe from the python.org installer are signed by the Python Software
Foundation, so running the module through the interpreter works:
python -m pip install ca-eli-mcp
python -m ca_eli_mcp
pip.exe is blocked for the same reason, so install with python -m pip, not
pip install. If python is not on PATH, use the Windows launcher: py -3 -m ca_eli_mcp.
{ "mcpServers": { "ca-eli-mcp": { "command": "python", "args": ["-m", "ca_eli_mcp"] } } }
Do not turn Smart App Control off to work around this - it cannot be re-enabled without reinstalling Windows.
Configuration
| Env var | Default |
|---|---|
CA_ELI_CACHE_DIR | ~/.matematic/cache/ca-eli |
CA_ELI_AUDIT_DIR | ~/.matematic/audit |
CA_ELI_BASE_URL | https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca |
License
Apache-2.0 (code). Justice Laws Website content is Government of Canada material (see SOURCES.md).
Comments
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