Before moving on, let's talk about how to read laws made by the government, called ''legislation'', ''statutes'', and ''acts'', and ''regulations''. We'll use British Columbia's ''Family Law Act'' as an example.

The name of a statute is written in italics. The names of other kinds another kind of law, called regulations, are written without italics. In British Columbia, we talk about the provincial ''Family Law Act'' and the Family Law Act Regulation, and the federal ''Divorce Act'' and the Child Support Guidelines. The Child Support Guidelines are a regulation to the ''Divorce Act'', and the Family Law Act Regulation is, like the name suggests, a regulation to the ''Family Law Act''.