Demographic statistics on diversity in the judiciary

Judicial Applicants and Appointees

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).

October 29, 2024 – October 28, 2025

	Total	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
	Total	Gender			Diversity						Language Proficiency in both Official Languages
Applications Received	269	138	131	0	4	45	61	14	13	131	115	96	94	102	83	88	81
Candidates Assessed	276	124	152	0	10	53	67	10	12	152	116	100	98	105	83	90	82
Candidates Highly Rec.¹	48	21	27	0	0	4	5	1	3	27	21	17	16	19	13	14	13
Candidates Recommended¹	42	16	26	0	2	6	8	0	3	26	20	18	17	19	15	16	15
Candidates Unable to Rec.¹	186	87	99	0	8	43	54	9	6	99	75	65	65	67	55	60	54
Newly Appointed Judges	68	34	34	0	5	10	12	0	3	34	25	22	20	22	19	19	19

Please note that in addition to the 68 newly appointed judges, 10 other judges were appointed or elevated to other courts during the same period; 6 men and 4 women. For example, this would include judges appointed to courts of appeal from the trial level courts. There were therefore 78 appointments during this period.

1. Please note that in their application, candidates may apply to more than one court. As a result, a candidate may receive different ratings from the Judicial Advisory Committees depending on the court—for example, “Highly Recommended” for one court, “Recommended” for another, and “Unable to Recommend” for a third. For ease of reference, the statistics above reflect the highest rating each candidate received.

Periods:

Judges currently on the bench

The Government of Canada has committed to tracking data on the diversity of judicial appointees. The Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs therefore publishes annual demographic statistics, not only regarding newly appointed judicial candidates and judges, but also, below, regarding all federally appointed judges. These statistics include judges appointed after 2016, who completed a questionnaire following reforms brought to the appointment process which included specific questions relating to diversity, and also those appointed before 2016, who completed a questionnaire which included a more general question regarding diversity. Following a detailed analysis carried out by the Office of the Commissioner of the responses from each of those judges appointed before 2016, the information has been classified according to the categories established in the current questionnaire.

As of February 1, 2025

	Number of Judges	Indigenous individual	Racialized individual	Ethnic/Cultural Group or other	Individual with Disability	2SLGBTQI+ individual	Woman
Judges appointed before 2016	561	5	14	38	1	1	243
Judges appointed after 2016	642	23	76	97	6	35	337
TOTAL:	1203	28	89	135	7	36	580