Statistics regarding Judicial Applicants and Appointees

October 21, 2016 – October 27, 2017

On October 20, 2016, the Government of Canada announced reforms to the superior courts judicial appointments process. As part of these changes and in order to increase transparency and rigour, the Government mandated the Office of the Commissioner for Judicial Affairs to collect and publish statistics and demographic information on judicial applicants and appointees. Based on voluntary disclosure by candidates through self-identification in the Questionnaire for judicial appointment, these statistics relate to diversity (see p. 3 of the candidates’ Questionnaire) and language proficiency (see p. 6 of the Questionnaire).

Total Gender Diversity Language Abilities in both Official Languages
Male Female Other Indigenous Visible Minority Ethnic/Cultural Group or other Person with Disability LGBTQ2 Woman Read court materials Discuss legal matters Converse with counsel Understand oral submissions All 4 abilities
Applications Received 997 570 427 0 36 97 190 23 51 427 406 323 323 345 300
Candidates Assessed 441 256 185 0 11 42 80 10 23 185 196 157 153 167 143
Candidates Highly Rec.1 129 75 54 0 5 13 18 2 6 54 68 55 57 59 53
Candidates Recommended1 82 47 35 0 2 6 16 0 6 35 42 33 31 37 31
Candidates Unable to Rec.1 230 134 96 0 4 23 46 8 11 96 86 69 65 71 59
Judges Appointed 74 37 37 0 3 9 15 1 4 37 34 26 25 28 24

Please note that in addition to the 74 candidates appointed, 12 other judges were appointed or elevated to other courts during the same period; 5 men and 7 women. For example, this would include judges appointed to courts of appeal from the trial level courts. There were therefore 86 appointments during this period.

1. Please note that in their application, candidates may apply to more than one court. A candidate can therefore obtain a rating of "highly recommended" for one court, "recommended" for another and "unable to recommend" for yet another court. For ease of reference, the above statistics reflect the highest rating candidates may have received from the Judicial Advisory Committees.



Periods:


Please note that statistics prior to October 2016 can be found on the Report of Activity of the Judicial Advisory Committees across Canada page.