This week the Globe & Mail published a scathing assessment of Canada’s civil court law system. Any lawyer who works in civil litigation and all of their clients already know how badly our system is broken. I attended a trial management court this morning where they were trying to book trials into 2027.( It is currently September of 2024.) In fact some lawyers already had other trials scheduled for that year.
What has made this system even worse is the provincial government auto insurance reforms which encourage insurance companies to delay and delay. Every year the amount of money a Plaintiff receives for pain and suffering drops. Every year the amount of money required to meet the legislative threshold increases. The prejudgment interest is set at a criminally low level for car accident cases. Yet the $400.00 a week that accident victims receive when they are no longer able to work has not increased in 15 years. In fact the amount of money you receive in income replacement benefits is lower than what you would get on social assistance.
The system does need long-term solutions but there are a couple of things that could be done right now namely (1) the appointment of 50 judges and 50 associate judges ( with staff to support them) to try cases and case-manage them. Ottawa had a massive trial list many years ago and they were successful in reducing the trial times with aggressive case management Masters. (2) There should also be penalties for a delay including prejudgment interest rates that are actually higher than the Bank of Canada rate. (3) Finally the progressive increases in the Insurance Act deductible and threshold for general damages need to be totally eliminated until such time as the courts are able to keep up.
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