ministry of the attorney general of ontario

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Amendments to the Courts of Justice Act and its regulations will:

· Increase the maximum amount of a claim in Small Claims Court from $25,000 to $35,000.

· Increase the minimum amount of a claim that may be appealed to the Divisional Court from $2,500 to $3,500.

Expand access to the Simplified Procedure in civil court to simplify complex processes and reduce the legal costs associated with cases involving modest values.

· Beginning January 1, 2020, people and businesses with civil court claims up to $200,000 will be able to use the Simplified Procedure process, up from the previous claim amount of $100,000.

· Changes will make it easier, faster and more affordable to resolve issues by limiting trials to five days, requiring parties to agree on a trial management plan and removing the option of a civil jury trial unless a jury notice has previously been filed.

Improve efficiency in the Divisional Court by clarifying court document filing requirements.

· Limit factums (documents) on motions for leave to appeal to facts, issues, statements of law, and authorities that are relevant to a ground on which leave to appeal may be granted.

· Limit motion records to documents which are referred to in the party’s factum and which are relevant to a ground on which leave to appeal may be granted.

Amendments to a regulation under the Law Society Act relate to the Law Society Tribunal processes of the Hearing Division:

· For certain types of motions, eliminating the requirement for the same members who will hear the merits of the proceeding to also hear the motion.

· Allow a single member panel, rather than a three-member panel, to exclude the public and/or witnesses from all or part of a hearing.

On December 4th, Ontario's Auditor General released a damning report highlighting the slow pace of modernization and how that is contributing to growing delays in Ontario courts and creating serious deficiencies in transparency.  

Also problematic, was the fact that the Auditor General’s Office was blocked from fully examining the reasons for those delays. 

The Auditor General examined three aspects of Ontario’s court system—Court Operations, the Criminal Court System, and Family Court Services and offered some welcome conclusions.

NOTE ON FORT FRANCIS COURTROOM USAGE

While the Rainy River District Law Association Association welcomes the Auditor General’s report on court operations and correctional services, saying it is an important contribution to provincial efforts to make Ontario's justice system more efficient and fair, it issued a Press Release disputing the Auditor General’s findings regarding the under-utilization of the courtrooms in the Fort Frances Courthouse.

READ THEIR PRESS RELEASE

Family Court Services 

1.  Based on the limited information made available to us, we found that effective and efficient court service processes are not in place for protecting children in accordance with legislated statutory timelines, but the extent of this issue is unknown.

2. Because the Ministry did not have accurate and complete information captured in its information system and the restriction placed in our access to individual child protection case files, we were unable to determine how many of the outstanding child protection cases were subject to the statutory timelines and/or the reasons why cases exceeded the timelines.

3. The Ministry did not have effective oversight of its contracts with the service providers in delivery of family mediation and other services across the province

READ SUMMARY

Criminal Court System

1. The Ministry of the Attorney General (Ministry) does not have effective systems and procedures in place to determine if its taxpayer funded resources are being used or allocated efficiently and in a cost-effective way to support the timely disposition of criminal cases.

2. The Ministry lacks the key data it needs to measure and publicly report on the results and effectiveness of the operations of mental health courts in Ontario.

3. Our Office experienced delays in receiving information and was not given full access to case files to determine why there are delays in the criminal court system.

READ SUMMARY

Court Operations

1. The overall pace of court system modernization remains slow and the system is still heavily paper-based, making it inefficient and, therefore, keeping it from realizing potential cost savings.

2. With the exception of a few courthouses that were experiencing over-capacity issues, many other courthouses that reported above average delays in disposition of cases were under-utilized in 2018/19.

3. We experienced a significant scope limitation by being denied access to information to address our audit objectives on administrative court scheduling, and experienced significant delays in receiving information, such as, for example, staffing statistics that took two months to obtain.

4. The Ministry should do more to manage the increasing number of sick days taken by Division staff and oversee the travel claims submitted by court interpreters.

READ SUMMARY

On December 9, 2019, Ontario's Attorney General, Doug Downey, introduced the Smarter and Stronger Justice Act 2019 - a Bill that proposes over 20 Statutory and Regulatory changes.

The result of a series of consultations over the summer through the Modernization and Innovation review and through the Legal Aid Services Act Review, proposals include:

• Amendments to the Notaries Act and the  Affidavits Act  (Paralegals can now act as Notaries and virtual Affidavits and signatures are would be allowed);
• Changes to Legal Aid Ontario (to allow for more autonomy);
• Maintain 2020-2012 funding for Legal Aid Ontario 2020-2021 funding will be maintained;
• Juries Act ( jurists addresses will no longer be public); and more.  

READ THE ACT HERE

VIEW ANNOUNCEMENT HERE

On December 19, 2019 regulations were filed to amend the Rules of Civil Procedure: O. Reg. 455/19 and O. Reg. 456/19 

The changes are summarized on the Ontario Regulatory Registry at: 

Regulation 194 under the Courts of Justice Act (Rules of Civil Procedure) O.Reg 455/19 

Amendments relating to materials filed in motions for leave to appeal to the Divisional Court pursuant to rule 62.02.

AND 

Reg. 194 under the Courts of Justice Act (Rules of Civil Procedure) O.Reg 456/19 

Amendments relating to the electronic filing and electronic issuance of documents in civil actions in the Superior Court of Justice.

On January 1, 2020, important civil justice reforms will come into effect. The reforms were introduced through: 

1. A regulation filed on October 23, 2019 to increase the Small Claims Court monetary jurisdiction (O. Reg 343-19   amending O. Reg. 626/00 pursuant to the Courts of Justice Act, s.53(1)).
2. A regulation filed on October 23, 2019 to amend civil court rules relating to Simplified Procedure (O. Reg 344-19  amending the Rules of Civil Procedure pursuant to the Courts of Justice Act).
3. Bill 100, the Protecting what Matters Most Act (Budget Measures) 2019, which passed on May 29, 2019 (amends s.108 of the Courts of Justice Act by eliminating civil jury trials in Simplified Procedure actions)

Please also note that a regulation filed on October 23, 2019 amends the Rules of the Small Claims Court court forms relating to garnishment proceedings (O. Reg 345-19). 

Following an EY Canada line-by-line review of Government Expenditures, the Ontario Government identified opportunities to move toward full cost recovery for court and transactional services.

After a public and stakeholder consultation period, the new fees were introduced in April 2019.  

NEW GUIDE TO FEE SCHEDULE

On March 26, 2019, Doug Downey, MPP (Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte) and then Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Finance (currently AG), filed his Private Member's Bill for first reading in the Legislature.  Bill 88 proposes several changes to the Planning Act, which FOLA is enthusiastically supporting.  

Bill 88, Planning Amendment Act, 2019

FOLA's endorsement letter

FOLA's endorsement letter of LawPro's support of this Bill

While the Bill died following Doug's appointment to AG, FOLA is hopeful that it will be reintroduced as a Government Bill in the near future.

Beginning January 1, 2020, the maximum claim filed in Small Claims Court will increase to $35,000. Currently, all claims over $25,000 must proceed in the Superior Court of Justice — one of the busiest courts in Canada — where litigation can take years and can involve expensive legal representation. 

Read Press Release