2021

Justice Szandter has been a distinguished child protection lawyer and family mediator, as well as past counsel to the Motherisk Commission.  In addition, she has been an adjunct professor for 20 years with the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and, most recently, focused her curriculum on Indigenous child welfare and anti-Black systemic racism.

Effective April 21, 2022 the province’s eintake digital platform will be available in courthouses in  Brampton, Brantford, Burlington, St. Catharines, Cayuga, Hamilton, Milton, Orangeville, Simcoe and Welland.  This will ensure prosecutors, courts and police have modern, digital tools to work quickly and efficiently

The Government of Canada is looking to fill retiring Justice Moldaver’s seat on the Supreme Court of Canada and will accept applications from qualified Ontario candidates until May 13, 2022. The Independent Advisory Board for Supreme Court of Canada Judicial Appointments will be led by the Honourable H. Wade MacLauchlan.

The OBA congratulates Justice Wiriranai Kapurura on his appointment to the Ontario Court of Justice in Toronto following a distinguished career in family and child protection law.  Justice Colin Daniel McMorrow has been appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice and assigned to North Bay.  Justice McMorrow has been a Crown Attorney, an Assistant Crown, and Legal Aid Duty Counsel during his career. He has been active in North Bay’s theatre and arts community.

Noted legal historian Philip Girard, preeminent author and law professor has been honoured by the Ontario Government for excellence in legal writing, awarding him the Mundel Medal.

Justice Copeland was serving on the Superior Court of Justice at the time of her appointment. Prior to her appointment to the Superior Court she served on the Ontario Court of Justice, presiding over criminal and youth matters in both of Canada’s official languages.

Attorney General Doug Downey has appointed 4 new judges to the Ontario Court of Justice and they will sit in Oshawa (Justice Baker), St. Catharines (Justice Brown) , Sudbury (Justice Lefebvre) and Elliot Lake (Justice Peterson) effective April 7, 2022

The Ontario government announced $19 million over the next three years which will allow a significant increase in the number of adjudicators and case processing staff at the Ontario Land Tribunal as well as raise staffing at the Landlord and Tenant Board to expedite resolution of the existing backlog.  The funding addresses a recommendation in the Report of the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force.

The Ontario Bar Association’s Working Group on Neutral Diversity has released a report examining diversity in alternative dispute resolution settings and proposing recommendations about how it can be improved in Ontario. Efforts to increase diversity in arbitration and mediation have been ongoing in other countries, but the issue has largely gone unaddressed in Ontario.

Ontario Bar Association President Karen Perron has been nominated for the Canadian Law Awards’ Female Trailblazer of the Year (Private Practice).