Statistics regarding Judicial Applicants and Appointees

October 28, 2017 – October 27, 2018

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 abilities2
Applications Received 252 115 137 0 10 24 44 5 16 137 93 83 77 82 73
Candidates Assessed 629 343 286 0 23 58 126 16 33 286 248 199 201 211 187
Candidates Highly Rec.1 125 61 64 0 5 11 20 0 5 64 50 44 43 44 41
Candidates Recommended1 132 63 69 0 3 9 24 3 8 69 50 38 38 43 38
Candidates Unable to Rec.1 372 219 153 0 15 38 82 13 20 153 148 117 120 124 108
Judges Appointed 79 33 46 0 3 7 11 2 6 46 26 23 22 23 21

Please note that in addition to the 79 candidates appointed, 19 other judges were appointed or elevated to other courts during the same period; 8 men and 11 women. For example, this would include judges appointed to courts of appeal from the trial level courts. There were therefore 98 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.

2. Please note that two additional questions were added to the Questionnaire (p. 6) in November 2017. Statistics reflecting these questions will be included in next year’s publication once sufficient data has been collected.



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.