The Civil Rules Review has proposed enormous changes to the Rules of Civil Procedure. They want to make the changes:
— after allowing only 10 weeks for people to prepare and submit comments
— with very little gathering of data, empirical study, or close study of other civil justice systems across Canada and the world
Reform is absolutely necessary. But is leaping into the unknown in December 2025 really better than leaping onto a well-studied landing spot a bit later in 2026?
If you agree that we need neutral evidence-based evaluation of the CRR’s proposed changes, the Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) might be Ontario’s best hope.
The LCO, which is based at Osgoode Hall Law School, is mandated to “advance law reform and promote access to justice” through rigorous research.
The LCO has its own funding, and it happens to be looking for new project proposals right now.
If you are making a submission to the CRR (please do!), then please consider asking for the CRR to
(i) invite the LCO to evaluate the Discussion Paper proposals, and
(ii) pump the brakes on this process, to give the LCO some time to do this work.
thanks for reading!
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