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 Release
and Report on Selected Reform Initiatives in Canada
are available on the Council website.
In 2009, the Canadian Bar Law for the Future Fund 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 Matters. We have added over 70 new records to the Inventory through this research, and the Final Report 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:- a word or phrase from the title of the reform,
- the province or territory of the reform,
- the year that the reform was first implemented, or first proposed if it has not been implemented, and
- the subject area(s) that the reform falls under.
Description of Reforms
Each reform is described according to a standard format, which includes the following information:- Status — Describes the current status of the reform initiative (permanently implemented, pilot project, proposed, declined, etc.)
- Province or territory — The province or territory in which the reform is being considered or has been implemented.
- Court — The level and type of the courts to which the reform applies. For example, "Court of Appeal", "Provincial Court - Civil Division ", "Unified Family Court".
- Body Responsible — Information on the agency through which the reform has been or would be implemented, such as the provincial government department, law society, legal aid organization, consumer group, or other body.
- Subjects — The general subject areas under which the reform falls.
- Timeline — Lists the major events in the development and implementation of the reform. Includes, where relevant, the release of the initial proposal, the commencement of any pilot projects, and the date of formal implementation.
- Publications — Identifies publications relevant to the reform including legislation, rules of court, proposals, evaluations, and any other significant sources of information.
- Development of reform — Describes the process of development for the reform proposal and steps involved in its approval and implementation.
- Purpose — Describes the situation or problem that the reform seeks to improve.
- Description of changes — Describes the specific changes that the reform involves; the actual content of the reform itself.
- Criteria and methods of evaluation — Describes the criteria developed to evaluate the success of the reform and the methods in place to determine whether the reform meets those criteria.
- Results — If the reform has been studied and evaluated according to criteria as above, describes the results of that analysis and whether the reform has been successful in achieving its stated purposes.
- Related reforms — Identifies any related reforms, including reforms that served as models, reforms for which the reform served as a model, associated reforms in a broader package of reforms, and reforms that the reform reversed.