ELUC Meeting Minutes - December 8, 2021

ESTATES LIST USERS COMMITTEE (ELUC)

DATE:                                    Wednesday, December 8, 2021

TIME:                                     4:30 p.m.

PLACE:                                  Zoom Video Conference

PRESENT:                            

                                                The Honourable Justice Dietrich (chair)

                                                Monica Simion (Estates Office Representative)

                                                Bosco Mascarenhas (Estates Office Representative)

                                                Kendra Naidoo

                                                Daniel Paperny (Minute Taker)

                                                Margaret Rintoul

                                                Marshall Swadron

                                                Barbara Walker-Renshaw

                                                Marni Whitaker

                                                Kavina Nagrani

                                                Gillian Fournie

 

1. Volunteer to take the Minutes

A committee member volunteered to take Minutes for this Dec. 8 2021 ELUC meeting.

2. Update from Estates Office Staff: Bosco Mascarenhas & Monica Simion

Mr. Mascarenhas and Ms. Simion provided updates on behalf of the Estates Office Staff.

Mr. Mascarenhas advised that, in part as a result of the scheduling blitzes that had been undertaken over the Fall, the wait times for scheduling matters have been significantly reduced since the ELUC’s last meeting.

Mr. Mascarenhas introduced Ms. Monica Simion from estates court office who would be providing her own update later on.

Mr. Mascarenhas provided an update on the processing of Applications for Certificates of Appointment. He indicated that there were approximately 198 pending electronic applications waiting to be processed that had been submitted since October 25, 2021 and approximately 450 pending hardcopy applications dating back to October 27, 2021. At the same time, there were files with corrections waiting to be reviewed dating back to October 4, 2021. In connection with small estates certificates, Mr. Mascarenhas reported that there were 8 small estate applications presently waiting to be processed. Mr. Mascarenhas reported that turnaround time for judicial decisions on small estate applications was down to approximately 2 weeks, which has been reduced from a turnaround time of approximately 3-4 weeks which was the case at the time of the last ELUC meeting.

Mr. Mascarenhas said that if any counsel had pending applications outside those timelines noted in the paragraph above, then they should contact him or the estates office to obtain an update.  

Ms. Simion, provided her own update and outlined her objective to take the very high volume of work managed by the Estates Registry Office and make it more manageable, to create faster and more productive and responsive service and turnaround times. Ms. Simion identified staffing and resourcing as one issue that should be addressed at the registry and pointed out that assigning tasks with more precision could help make the office’s workload more manageable and output more efficient.

Ms. Simion said that the primary objective of the registry is to provide efficient and timely service and to meet service delivery timelines and user expectations. Additional staffing resources are incoming to the office and the hope is that with new young staff arriving at the Estates Office imminently, many of whom are students who are law school bound, there will be improvement in overall production and timeliness.

Ms. Simion acknowledged that estate litigation is a sensitive and expensive process for parties, especially for self-represented litigants, and so timely responsiveness from their office is critical, and this is acknowledged by the registry and its staff; they want to be good public servants.

Ms. Simion invited counsel with any questions, concerns or feedback, to contact her by email and she will provide responses as she is able.                     

A committee member raised a question asking about the Attorney General website’s indication that applications for Certificate of Appointment are generally processed within 15 business days, and raised a concern that this creates an unrealistic expectation particularly for unrepresented parties. Ms. Simion indicated that she would take this concern to the appropriate persons where it could be addressed and then report back. 

A committee member raised a question about updates to the court’s website and where suggestions for updates could be directed. It was determined that the question was best directed to Ms. Laura Craig, not in attendance at this meeting, to be addressed at the next meeting.