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Inventory of Reforms

About the Inventory

Canada's civil justice systems are undergoing a period of rapid reform, with many new programs and Rules of Court aimed at increasing access to justice, reducing cost and delay, and supporting alternatives to litigation. The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice Inventory of Reforms has been developed as a publicly available information sharing resource to provide information on the many reform initiatives in Canada.

The Inventory of Reforms is an on-line knowledgebase of civil justice reforms. The Inventory contains descriptions of reform initiatives from across the country, each described according to a standard format that includes information on the purpose, development, implementation, and evaluation of the reform.

The initial research for the Inventory focused on selected issues relating to the cost of access to justice: proportionality, experts, point-of-entry assistance, discovery and caseflow management. Funding for this research was provided by the Canadian Judicial Council, as part of a collaboration between the Forum and the Sub-committee on Access to Justice (Trial Courts) of the Council's Administration of Justice Committee. The Council's News ReleaseExternal Link and Report on Selected Reform Initiatives in CanadaPDFExternal Link are available on the Council website.

In 2009, the Canadian Bar Law for the Future FundExternal Link provided funding for research to support the continued expansion of the Inventory. The focus of this project was on initiatives intended to reduce the cost of justice, which is a priority of the national Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family MattersPDF. We have added over 70 new records to the Inventory through this research, and the Final ReportPDF of the project is now available.

We continue to work both to expand the collection itself and introduce new functionality to our search interface. To ensure the Inventory is current and comprehensive, we will rely on members of the civil justice community from across Canada to contribute information regarding reforms in their respective jurisdictions and sectors. Please visit our Take Part page for information on how you can contribute to this project.

Scope of the Inventory

The Inventory contains descriptions of reforms which have been implemented in a Canadian jurisdiction, as well as proposed reforms from law reform commissions, task force reports, and the like. This includes changes to court procedures, legal aid, and public legal education and information programs.

The Inventory does not include changes to substantive law, such as personal injury law or family law. Reforms which affect only the criminal or administrative justice systems are also not included.

Searching the Inventory

By default, all the reforms in the Inventory will be displayed in your search results. This list can be filtered by:

Description of Reforms

Each reform is described according to a standard format, which includes the following information: