Statistics regarding Judicial Applicants and Appointees

October 29, 2021 – October 28, 2022

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 Proficiency in both Official Languages
Male Female Other Indigenous individual Racialized individual Ethnic/Cultural Group or other Individual with disability 2SLGBTQI+ individual Woman Read court materials Discuss legal matters Converse with counsel Understand oral submissions Write decisions Conduct hearings All 6 abilities
Applications Received 318 152 166 0 10 48 72 5 10 166 140 108 106 113 87 93 86
Candidates Assessed 227 100 127 0 7 44 58 5 11 127 115 96 95 101 75 82 75
Candidates Highly Rec.1 45 23 22 0 1 6 10 2 2 22 25 20 20 22 17 18 17
Candidates Recommended1 53 17 36 0 2 9 15 1 1 36 32 29 28 29 24 26 24
Candidates Unable to Rec.1 129 60 69 0 4 29 33 2 8 69 58 47 47 50 34 38 34
Judges Appointed 58 30 28 0 2 13 6 1 2 28 19 18 20 18 15 15 15

Please note that in addition to the 58 candidates appointed, 13 other judges were appointed or elevated to other courts during the same period; 4 men and 9 women. For example, this would include judges appointed to courts of appeal from the trial level courts. There were therefore 71 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.