Ontario Courts Expand Their Operations During COVID-19 Pandemic

Over the past few weeks, lawyers and litigants alike have received a lot of information and guidance on the status of the justice system in these challenging times. In particular, great strides have been made to keep the system moving despite the shuttering of offices and court houses amid the stay at home orders impacting most of the population. So far, urgent matters have been heard remotely on an expedited basis, limitation periods have been suspended in Ontario retroactive to March 16, 2020, electronic filing for court documents has been greatly expanded and legal governing bodies have been offering services to accommodate lawyers.

Over the past week, the courts have continued to move forward to accommodate us in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Further Expansion of Court Operations

On April 2, 2020, Chief Justice Morawetz issued another Notice to the Profession advising of expanded court operations during this pandemic, to be effective April 6, 2020.

The notice sets out the courts' expanded operations for civil, criminal and family proceedings throughout Ontario. The expanded operations protocol is broken-down by region, but the following civil matters will now be heard throughout all regions:

Pre-Trial conferences will be conducted, provided that they have a "settlement objective". In other words, the court will entertain these meetings provided the parties have an intention of settling the matter and not gearing up for trial; Motions that apply to parties under disability will proceed; Consent motions and applications for approval of settlements will be heard, provided they are brought in writing; The Divisional Court will begin to hear non-urgent matters beginning on April 6, 2020, subject to resources and availability; and The Commercial and Estate Lists in Toronto will begin to hear select motions, applications, case management conferences, pre-trial and settlement conferences, provided that they are under four hours in length. All of these hearings will be conducted on a "virtual" basis, either by video or teleconference.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has also announced that parties on non-urgent appeals that were scheduled between March 17 and April 3, 2020 can request that their appeal be heard in writing. If the parties cannot agree on whether the appeal should proceed in writing during this time, they may request an interim hearing by teleconference to have this issue determined.

For instance, in Carleton Condominium...