Q4. What is a bill number? How are bill numbers assigned?

A4. All bills have a long title and almost all of them also have a short title.  Lawyers usually refer to them by the short title, but these names can be quite boring and hard to remember.

The short title of the bill the government intended to introduce on December 5, 2016, was the Teachers’ Professional Agreement (2016) Act. The short title of the bill the government did introduce on February 14, 2017, was the Teachers’ Professional Agreement and Classroom Improvements (2017) Act. Boring and hard to remember, right?

Every bill is also given a number. The bills are numbered in the order they’re introduced. When the legislature starts a new session, the bill numbers start again at Bill 1.  The bill numbers are always way easier to remember than the long title or the short title.  That’s why the general public tend to talk about bills by their numbers rather than by their titles.