November 6, 2025
The Empire Club of Canada Presents
Decades in 6 Years: Hon. Doug Downey on Ontario’s Courts Modernization, Digital Transformation, and What’s Next.
Chairman: Saurabh Popat, President, Board of Directors, Empire Club of Canada
Moderator
Elizabeth Hall, Executive Director & General Counsel, the Ontario Bar Association
Distinguished Guest Speaker
The Honourable Doug Downey, Attorney General of Ontario
Head Table Guests
Carol Wilding, President & CEO, CPA Ontario
Gavin Tighe, K.C., Partner & Co-Chair, Litigation & Dispute Resolution Group, Gardiner Roberts LLP
Welcome Address by Saurabh Popat, President, Board of Directors, Empire Club of Canada
Good afternoon, everyone. I want to first of all thank you for all being here on this important day. Welcome Attorney General Doug Downey, and distinguished guests. I’m Saurabh Popat, Chair of the Board of the Empire Club of Canada, and your host for today’s event.
To formally begin, I want to acknowledge that we are gathering on the Traditional and Treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the homelands of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat Peoples. I encourage you all to learn more about the Traditional Territory on which you work and live.
Now, today’s event would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. The Empire Club is a non-profit organization, and our sponsors generously support the club, and make these events possible, and complimentary for our online viewers to attend. So, please join me in thanking our Lead Sponsors, CPA Ontario and Gardiner Roberts LLP. Thank you to our VIP Reception Sponsors, the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Thank you. And to our Supporting Sponsors, Baker McKinsey LLP, and Ontario Real Estate Association. Thank you. We also deeply appreciate the ongoing support of our Lead Season Sponsors, Bruce Power, Hydro One, and National Bank Financial Markets. And our VIP Reception Season Sponsors, Ellis Don, McKinsey & Company, the Ontario Road Builders Association, and Waste Connections of Canada. Thank you. And finally, thank you to our incredible Media Partner, the Toronto Star, and our AV Partner, Bespoke Audiovisual. Thank you.
If you have questions for our speakers today, please scan the QR code found on your program, or the Q&A function if you’re online. For those of you online, if you require technical assistance, please use the chat feature.
Now today, to get started, I’m very pleased to see you all. There is quite a lot to say about this topic today, and a lot that has happened in a very short period of time. Over the past few years, Ontario’s justice system has gone through one of the most ambitious transformations in its history. Out of the immense challenge of the pandemic came opportunity, and what might once have taken decades has unfolded in just six years. Virtual hearings, digital filings, and online case management have gone from ideas to everyday practice.
Earlier this month, the province launched its new digital court system, which is a major transformative step in making justice more accessible, efficient, and user-focused. That progress reflects years of work, and a people-first vision. When Attorney General Doug Downey last joined us here in 2020, he said, “We have a lot to be conscious of the user, so we’re making conscious efforts to design the system for access to this new electronic world that we’ve moved to.” Five years later, that idea has come to life. And I wanted to stress how quick that is, and how transformative that change is for any sector to make, let alone something as complex as justice. And now, because of that work, people are getting help earlier, more affordably, and with fewer barriers. I think we can all be proud that our justice system is adapting to meet people where they are.
So, today’s discussion, “Decades in Six Years, Ontario’s Courts Modernization, Digital Transformation, and What’s Next,” continues a conversation that matters to everyone who believes public institutions need to evolve at the same pace as the society they serve. Here at the Empire Club, we’ve been exploring that same theme across a lot of different sectors, from healthcare and education, to energy and digital governance. Last year, Minister Todd McCarthy reminded us that future-proofing our digital infrastructure will determine the success, the security, and the economic prosperity of Ontario for decades to come. That’s true for the justice system, too. At its heart, the work that is happening today is about maintaining trust in our institutions, protecting fairness, and ensuring access to justice in a rapidly changing and dynamic world. And technology is the vehicle we’re using to get there.
We’re very honoured to welcome back Attorney General Doug Downey, in conversation with Elizabeth Hall, Executive Director and General Counsel of the Ontario Bar Association. Together, they’ll reflect on what has been accomplished and what’s next.
Now, before we begin, I’d like to thank our Lead Event Sponsor, CPA Ontario. CPA Ontario represents more than 100,000 members and 20,000 students, setting the highest standards of competence and ethical conduct in the profession. Under the leadership of Carol Wilding, CPA Ontario has become a trusted voice for accountability and public interest, values that connect directly to today’s conversation. Carol’s leadership has strengthened organizations across civic life, from the Toronto Region Board of Trade to Mount Sinai Hospital Foundation and Plan Canada. Please join me in welcoming Carol Wilding, President and CEO of CPA Ontario, to the stage.
Opening Remarks by Carol Wilding, President & CEO, CPA Ontario
Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Let me just first say, if you’re feeling like me, it’s been quite a week in Canadian politics, and here we are, to have another conversation. So, just two days ago, as we know, the federal government delivered one of the most highly anticipated budgets in recent memory. And one, if you’re like me, that you’re still studying under a microscope, to just understand exactly what it means for all of us. Today, Minister Bethlenfalvy will release Ontario’s 2025 Fall Economic Statement. And I was chatting with the AG about it over lunch, and I think the timing is somewhere in there, but this is the important conversation here. And that is, obviously, the Fall Economic Statement is another important fiscal document that arrives at a critical inflection point for our province, and for our country.
We know that both here in Ontario and across the country we have rich resources, we have opportunities; that if we leverage them properly, we’ll help right the ship and address our long-term economic challenges. I’ll say that as the head of CPA Ontario, and as was commented, we are the regulatory body for over 105,000 accountants, I’ll say in every sector and every corner of this province, and they stand very ready to help us both seize the opportunities, mitigate the risks, as well, but importantly, make our province and our country stronger and more resilient. Because trust and transparency are the foundation of who we are as CPAs. And as we innovate as a profession, by embracing the potential of AI as just one example, the protection of the public is always the lens through which we approach everything that we do.
It’s a perspective that is no doubt shared by our keynote speaker today, someone who understands the importance of balancing the building of smarter, faster, and more resilient systems with keeping public safety and protection of the public front and centre. Since his appointment in 2019, the Honourable Doug Downey, the Attorney General of Ontario, has been leading one of the most ambitious transformations in Ontario’s judicial history. As you heard from digitizing court processes to expanding online services and modernizing outdated procedures, his vision has moved Ontario’s justice system forward decades in just six years. Attorney General Downey understands the connection between access to justice, community safety, and technological innovation. When the COVID pandemic threatened to create barriers to success, it was the Attorney General’s leadership that ensured Ontario courts could continue to function online.
But his leadership extends beyond the courtroom and into some of the most transformational policy portfolios of our time. He has led the charge in establishing iGaming Ontario, which is a perfect example of balancing innovation and responsibility to the public, making this province the first Canadian jurisdiction to regulate online gaming. His time as Attorney General is a testament to how practical leadership bridges principles like innovation and accountability to the delivery of real positive outcomes for the people of Ontario. But the most important fact everyone should know about Attorney General Downey, the one thing you should all take away from today’s event, is that his sister is a CPA, a member of our profession. Please join me in a warm welcome for the Honourable Doug Downey, Attorney General of Ontario.
The Honourable Doug Downey, Attorney General of Ontario
Thank you, Carol. If you were a lawyer, I would think that was a great judicial application. No, I’m absolutely thrilled to be here, and it’s not lost on me, the gravitas of, you know, this very space and this kind of conversation. And you are right that Minister Bethlenfalvy is shortly delivering the Fall Economic Statement, and it will be talking about how we protect Ontario in so many different sectors, and this is one sector in particular that I’ve been very fortunate to have the support of both the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board, to obtain the resources to protect our system, our judicial system, and the other pieces that I’ll touch on today.
So, you know—but before I get into the content, the full content, I wanna have a few acknowledgments, and thank the Empire Club of Canada for hosting this very important conversation. A lot of work went into making this day possible, and I saw volunteers guiding people here. I saw many conversations with individuals who have been longtime members of this club. And so, what a forum. What an absolute privilege to be in a space. I often go to places, and I’ll be at a dinner or a lunch, and I’ll know some people. But I look around this room, and there are participants in our system in every single sector. Whether it be, I’m not gonna name them all, but tribunals, the accountants, the lawyers, the law society, it just, it goes on and on. And, you know, that’s exactly how we have done this. That’s, and when I say we, I mean we. All of us have done this.
I am deeply honoured that Chief Justice Morawetz and Chief Justice Nicklas have taken the time to be here with us. They are instrumental in everything that I’m going to talk about today. This would not have happened without the collaboration of both of them, and Chief Justice Tulloch, who have been, you know, what partners in moving all of this stuff forward. So, thank you for being here. And Chief Justice Morawetz said that he skipped a boring speech to be here. So, my apologies for that misjudgment. You know, it’s really incredible. Our ongoing collaboration has been absolutely essential in the commitment to deliver change. So, I’m fortunate that everybody could be here. I want to thank everybody for their leadership.
And now, one more comment, before I jump into the rest of the content. Today, I will be covering a number of key initiatives. But the fundamental piece is that, you know, our system is built on a lot of history, it is built on a lot of tradition, and is one of the most respected legal systems in the world. As we sit here, there are 5,000 lawyers from around the world in Toronto for an International Bar Association Conference. And I’ve had a chance to talk with several of them from every corner of the world, from Hong Kong to Denmark to Italy and Brazil. And the respect they have for our system is something we should hold very dear. And it’s something we should defend. And it is something that I defend at every turn. And that’s so fundamental to our society. It’s how we protect society.
And I’m not gonna get too far into bail reform. I’m not gonna get too far into the things that we need our other justice partners to move on, and move further on. But we have a really good base. We have a really solid base to work from. And although it’s built on a strong foundation of tradition, and one that I deeply respect and value, and it’s a system that’s served us very well, but as the world changes, and as technology evolves and communities grow, tradition alone is not enough to carry us forward. We need to take bold action. We need to break free from the status quo and do things differently.
And there’s a saying that the inertia of the past should not be the presumption of the present. And I believe that to be true. We have to challenge every single historical piece and why it’s there. It’s been a central motivation for me over the last six years, and it now resonates more than ever, as our government delivers a strong plan to protect Ontario and strengthen our justice system. Our government’s work over the years has been largely fueled by the recognition that we must always be prepared for the future. That has always been clear to me, but boy, did we ever learn it when COVID came along. Because if the system slows down, or if processes become too complex or too costly, the people feel it first. We see it happen, but the people feel it first. Those are the users, and that’s where our vision has to be focused. Victims of crime waiting for closure, families waiting for vital supports. There are a number of ways that people are affected by the justice system, whether they want to be or not. Sometimes, they’re reluctant participants, and sometimes they’re not.
But that’s why, over the last number of years, we’ve driven historic transformation together across the justice system. Modernizing how it works, investing in new technology, investing in people, making sure that all the needs are being met, as we rapidly evolve this province. Because we need to be an economic powerhouse, and continue to be an economic powerhouse. And if we don’t have the fundamentals right, if we don’t have the right pieces in place, it’s not just about justice. It’s about our ability to reinvest in our communities, and keep our communities safe. And we all feel that, and we all want that. It’s almost a trite thing to say. But if we’re not protecting Ontario with everything that we do, then we’re going to lose the plot. So, my theory of change on modernization is pretty simple. It’s not about technology. It’s about empowering people through technology. Every courtroom upgrade, every digital portal, every staffing expansion, every single thing is about restoring confidence and improving access to justice, so that our communities feel safe, that people feel protected, and our economy can grow.
Now, four years ago, a short four years ago—or a long four years ago, depending on your perspective—we launched what is called Justice Accelerated. It was a plan to break down long-standing barriers, move more services online, bring justice closer to the people that it serves. We did that in a number of ways. But one significant way is that we started by using virtual and hybrid hearings. A modern solution to safeguard access to justice amidst the global health crisis that we had. But now that it’s in place, and the collective effort that we made to make it real, it is an enduring innovation and a current hallmark of our justice system. And people are looking at us from around the world, wondering how we did it, how we did it so fast, and why it’s working so well. And there are a couple of answers for that. One is the collaboration that I spoke of with Chief Justice Nicklas and Chief Justice Morawetz, and their teams, and the Ontario Bar Association of FOLA, and the Toronto Lawyers Association, and the others who came to the table with goodwill, and with trust. Because it is true. The change moves at the speed of trust. If you don’t have a base of trust, you cannot make change. And so we have that, and that’s made it possible to do things that would not happen otherwise.
But as Minister Bethlenfalvy well knows, it also takes money. And so I’ve been very fortunate to have the trust and the insight of my colleagues and the premier. This whole hybrid virtual hearing started with a $65 million investment to equip courthouses across Ontario with audio-visual technology, needed to support virtual and hybrid hearings. We also took steps for the necessary training, because if you have the technology and you have the wires in place, if you don’t have training for court staff, the judiciary, and the users, including the public when needed, well, then it’s not going to work. So we invested in that as well, and that has been transformative. As of this past August—now we started in 2021, this is where the count starts—as of August, we have 11 million virtual and hybrid hearings. 11 million in that period of time, four years. I think that is quite significant. And today, we have 195 courtrooms fully equipped to support those hybrid hearings. And by the end of next year, we’re aiming to upgrade a total of 338, with modern audio-visual equipment.
These aren’t changes about screens and software; they’re about people and how we function. We’re not automating, we’re transforming. Automating is taking a form, scanning it, and putting it on the web. This is more than that. We are transforming how people approach the system, how they interact with the system, and how the system responds to their needs. And for those of you who are in business, who are talking to companies that want to relocate here, to be able to tell our story of what’s happening in the backbone of the government, the backbone of the public systems, this is a sales feature. This is like pipes and pavement to a municipality. This is fundamentals. And to be leaders in the world, leaders in North America, is something that we can sell to people who want to invest in Ontario. And that’s why we had to get it right.
Now, it means a witness who doesn’t have to travel, if they’re in the northern communities, for a short hearing. It means that individuals who are doing a JPT, if you’re a lawyer, you know, can be scheduled and have it happen in the half hour it was scheduled without leaving the office, and then having to bill the client for getting there and back. This permeates the entire system. These modern solutions have tangible impacts with benefits that support a faster and fairer and more accessible justice system, no matter where you live, no matter where you live in Ontario. And if you have an expert who’s in California, they can join the trial, as well. There are all sorts of ways this saves money, saves time, produces a better result.
The next big piece—now, how, can I just, with a quick show of hands, know what I’m talking about, when I say the digital transformation of justice, the court’s digital transformation system, how many people have any clue what I’m talking about? I’m gonna say less than half. And that, my friends, is success. Because this is the most ambitious transformation of a digital system, the backbone of how the courts work, the Family Court and Criminal Court, and other lines of business, at two different levels, at the Ontario Court, at the Superior Court, each had their own back office system. So, we were running in parallel several back offices. Well, a couple of years ago, we said, that’s a product of the Constitution, where people have different responsibilities for different things. But it grew up that way. The technology adapted to that reality. And we collectively said, this doesn’t make sense. This is not the way that you would build it, if you started from scratch. So again, in collaboration, we got together and we said, there’s a better way. And all I had to do was go to Minister Bethlenfalvy and get more money.
166 million dollars later, two years ago, we started this adventure. Because the system was so overwhelmed in paper. Now, I used to be a court clerk and a court registrar, taking filings and stuff, before I went to law school. So I have some sympathy for the mounds of paper. A 90% paper-based system in Ontario. That’s what it was like when I was there. We’ve turned that on its head. And that 166-million-dollar plan has delivered. And the reason I asked how many have heard of it, it launched on October the 14th. And you haven’t heard of it. And that is such success. There were 100 people holed up over Thanksgiving, getting this launch ready. And it went so well. And you can’t count a lot of government, electronic, digital transformation systems that go like that. And so, I’m very thankful for the collaboration of everybody’s office, and all of the people that have tucked into that to make it such a success. What’s it gonna do?
We are, again, being watched from around the world. When I talk to my colleague, because they’re in from the UK, my counterpart in the UK, and I sat down with her, and I talked about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. And she said, “Really? Like, how are you gonna do that?” And I said, “It’s not how we’re going to do it, it’s how we did it. It’s happening. It’s happening. It went live.” She said, “We spent two billion dollars trying to do what you did, and it’s not really working as well as yours is.” So that is huge success for us. That’s just one piece. We’re doing lots of stuff together. There’s really good stuff. But I’m proud to share that it’s about filing, and moving orders, and paying for things, and all sorts of stuff all on that one portal, all one backbone, all one piece. And that’s only because in this instance, it was the right thing to do elbows down. It was really important that we all got together, and that we did things together. And you know, it represents the largest modernization in Canadian history. The portal will give people a single online access to file documents, pay fees, access hearings, and it doesn’t matter what line of business. So it’s live in Toronto now—here’s the status update—it’s live in Toronto now. Criminal will come next year. As we work out small tweaks, there’s always small tweaks, it will then scale across the province. And by the end of the decade, it will be the standard. It will be everywhere. And a lawyer practicing in Sudbury can be filing in Toronto, and vice versa, and all over the place. So it’s all good stuff.
But I’m gonna move on to the next topic, because this justice at your fingertips piece is just something I’m so passionate about. But I wanna leave lots of time for questions. The next piece, though, as we build this system, and as we started this conversation, we can’t forget who we’re actually serving. We have to make sure that the people of Ontario are being served. And so, there are individuals in society who do not have the capacity to be represented in the courts, to deal with the issues that brought them to court. You know, Legal Aid is such an important fundamental for our society. And we’ve done a number of things for, in that space. And I’m pleased that Eileen’s here, the head of Legal Aid, and Steve Pengelly’s here, the chair of the board, and others. They are such an important justice partner for us. But it’s why we took historic action to support the most important part of Legal Aid.
So, there are three parts to it. One is certificates. That’s it’s a certificate that goes out to a lawyer who’s willing to take the file, and then run with the file. They get paid. There are duty counsel who are in the courts already, and they will help people as they encounter them, usually on a short-term basis. And then there’s the clinics. But these certificates that go to lawyers, they’re gated. They’re gated by income. So, you don’t get a certificate, unless you make less than a certain amount of money. So, if you make less than $19,000, then you will qualify, if you have no children. If you have one child, then it’s 21. If you have two children, it’s 23. And I can see the look on your faces, like what’s that got to do with anything? Well, that’s what I said. So, under the leadership of Aileen and Steve, we got rid of that qualification of how many kids you have, and we moved it from 19,000 to 45,440. And we will serve over 180,000 more people every single year in this province with that change. And that is a remarkable change. And it has a real impact on real people in the places we need it the most. But it also helps the courts work better, because they have people in front of them with the assistance to be able to articulate what their interest is. So, for that reason, I’m very thankful. We’ve done lots of change in clinics. We redid the clinic system, the LASA, and that was five years ago. And we’ve done constant change since, to make sure we’re serving the right people, that people are getting representation. And duty counsel, we increased their compensation to make sure we’re getting and retaining the best. So, that’s just a touch on Legal Aid. There’s so much that’s happening in that space, as well, and I’m very excited about that.
I won’t get into too many details about it, but jurors, has anybody served on a jury? I have friends that when they get the letter, they’re like, “Why’d you put me on the list?” And the second question is, “How do I get off the list?” Well, I don’t do that—well, indirectly. There was a period of time, until several years ago, where we pulled the jury rolls off property records. Well, that inherently creates a bit of a problem, and it’s been like that forever. So we changed it, because we were missing renters, we were missing First Nations, we were missing other people. So we changed it, it has now pulled off Health Cards, off the health records. So a much more robust pool. Very quiet change, because that’s the kind of thing that doesn’t attract a lot of fanfare. But that’s why people who didn’t get those letters before are getting them now, and we’re seeing participation. The second piece was, jurors were not getting paid for the first long period of their time, when they’re doing their public service. And we just changed that last month. So the jurors, instead of getting zero dollars for the first several days, I think it’s 40 days, 50 days—Jack’s telling me 50 days. All right. Anyways, you were getting nothing. And now, they’re getting $120 from day one. Because we want people to be compensated. It’s dislocating economically, as well. And it’s really important that we’re recognizing the work that people are doing, the sacrifice that they’re making.
So beyond that, we’re into capacity building. You know, the Ontario Court of Justice, led by Chief Justice Nicklas, had about 300 judges as a complement, 300 JPs as a complement. Again, I went to Peter—he’s gonna stop returning my calls—and we have added 52 new seats for judges. And in the first cohort of 25, we filled 21 of them. We’re in motion of filling those. If you wanna be a judge, if you’re a lawyer, if you wanna be a judge, Matt Bondi’s over here. He’s the chair of the committee. Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome. Yeah. And no, it’s really important, it is important. But the magic isn’t in those 52 judges. It’s about the complement that goes with it. Every judge that gets appointed, or every spot that gets made to be appointed, I get seven staff. So in that same period, we have added 700 full-time staff, Crowns, victim service workers, clerks, things to make the system, the capacity in the system work better. We’ve added nine associate judges to help Chief Justice Morawetz at the Superior Court level. We have our ask in for more federal judges, to help keep communities safe and protect Ontario. And we have that discussion on a regular basis. We need to build capacity at every single level. And I saw in the budget, the one piece that I did see in the federal budget, they are proposing to add two Court of Appeal spots. We really need four, but we’ll take the two, and then come back to them. But we need to build capacity at every single level.
And so—I swear, I will stop, Betsy, so we can get to questions. There’s so many big things going on, and we’re so busy doing things. The Civil Rules review. The Civil Rules have not been touched in half a century. How things operate, how lawyers bring things to court, how courts deal with them. It’s pretty fundamental. And when we know the trials are taking five, six years, that’s not acceptable to any participant, and it hurts us economically. Because if businesses hear that, that’s why so many corporate cases are going off to arbitration. They’re just not using the system that we have to provide. We need to fix that. Chief Justice Morowitz came to me, and he said, “This is not acceptable.” And he said, “I’ve got this idea. Why don’t we take a run at it? Why don’t we just do this?” And I said, “I’m up for change. If you’re with me, let’s do it. Let’s stand together and do it.” And we started that two years ago. Justice Boswell and Alison Spiegel co-chaired a panel, went out, wrote a preliminary report, went out to the profession. We got over 200 submissions back, over 2,000 pages. I’ve read every single page of every single submission. Really fantastic stuff. They have just given me last Friday, this past Friday, the final report. We will make those submissions public, and we will make the report public. And we’ve made it very clear, we’ve stood side by side. Change is coming. We just need to ground what parts of it are going when, but change is coming to the system. And we will get those five and six year trials down to two years. We have to make that happen. It’s fundamental to the backbone of our system.
And as was mentioned by Carol, the Ministry of the Attorney General reaches well beyond the legal world. I have the privilege of overseeing engineering and architects of different professions. And CPAO, in particular, has been an area that I had an interest coming in, because it affected my Christmas presents. So, but no, we had gone through change. We had gone through some change in that. And the change that happened, everybody remembers CMA, CGAs and all the movement and all the pieces around that, and the steady hand of Carol and her team getting us to a point. But we still, when I came in, had a separate entity for the education part. And that, I felt, was the last piece of the puzzle. And so, Gavin and Carol and I, Gavin was the chair of that group, we had a conversation, said it’s time. It’s time to roll that in. And so we did that, and it was pretty seamless. There was the right thing to do. Everybody understood it, and it was great. And now, CPA Ontario has embarked on an ambitious project to, I will say, repatriate the boundaries of the profession to the province, as opposed to a federal usurpation of it. And it has been done so well, and so strongly, that you told me at lunch—can I say what you told me at lunch? We’re now being followed by Western Canada in that. So again, leaders across the country.
I’m gonna stop there, because I know Betsy has lots of questions, and you have questions. But we could get into tribunals. I’m just gonna say one thing about tribunals, which covers social benefits, Landlord Tenant, there’s 13 tribunals, the Ontario Land Tribunal. We’re in balance in all of them but two, and we are very close. Under the leadership of Sean Weir, who’s over here, we have the Landlord Tenant Board backlogged down 80%, we are almost at balance. So, if you’re thinking about becoming a landlord, stay tuned. The world is getting much brighter. We normally run 80,000 cases a year. We are up over 106,000 resolved last year. So, the increased demand, we’re still driving down the backlog. And we’ve doubled the number of adjudicators. Thank you, Sean.
So, I’m just gonna answer the question, what’s next? Because we’re not done. What’s next? I think a major area of focus has to be on AI. I think that we have to be moving in that space. My perception, you could try and argue me off this, I think chat GPT and AI is like Wikipedia. It’s great, if you know the answer. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got a lot of work to do to decide where it should be, and how it should be used. We need to harness it for the right reasons. But we can’t give away the backbone of our system to do something like that. So, this can be a very vigorous discussion. The second piece that we’re going to continue to debate is what is the water level for online, not online? I think it’s going to take a few years. Academics will weigh in, the judiciary will weigh in, the practitioners will weigh in. We haven’t found that water level yet. We need to figure that out, about what should be online, what should not be online, when it makes sense, when it doesn’t. So, we’re not pretending we got it right in the first place. Exactly. But we’re moving in the right direction.
The other ambitious pieces is that we need to continue to grow capacity in the system in every single way, by harnessing technology, making the process simpler so people can be self-reps. Long are the days, I think, that Family Law should aspire to have every Family Law participant represented in court. It’s just never going to happen. We need to embrace that we’re going to have self-represented individuals in the system. So, we need to build the system for that. We need it to be accessible in a way that people can navigate the system to resolve their issues, as they go through. But I’m going to stop, Betsy. I could go on all day. So, I’m going to stop there, I’m going to sit down, and I’m going to start answering questions. Thank you. Merci. Miigwetch.
Saurabh Popat
Wow. Thank you, Minister Downey, for those thoughtful remarks, and for sharing how your perspective on how Ontario’s justice system continues to evolve, tremendous transformation. Congratulations. It’s clear that your leadership and commitment to building a system that’s accessible, transparent, and responsive to the people it serves are helping to shape the future of justice in this province. To continue this important conversation, I’m pleased to welcome our moderator for today’s discussion, Elizabeth Hall, Executive Director and General Counsel of the Ontario Bar Association. The OBA is Ontario’s largest legal association, representing more than 17,000 members across the province. Elizabeth leads a team of six lawyers and 40 professionals supported by over 1,200 volunteers, who work every day to strengthen Ontario’s justice system. Her career began at a leading national law firm, followed by a decade in private practice before she stepped into public service, including serving as chief-of-staff to an attorney general. In both government and her current role at the OBA, Elizabeth has advised on major modernization initiatives and a wide range of justice sector issues. Please join me, in welcoming Elizabeth to the stage.
Elizabeth Hall, Executive Director & General Counsel, the Ontario Bar Association
Thank you. I very much appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today, Minister. But I’m going to dive right in on a question that, frankly, Ontarians are looking for answers on. I’m going to ask you straight out. Did you, or to your knowledge, any member of your cabinet, fail to properly recognize any game day superstition that may have lead to the heartbreaking loss on Saturday?
The Hon. Doug Downey
Well, I have to confess this. I did receive a phone call from the District Attorney of Los Angeles, who wanted to make a cross-border bet. And I said, “I don’t have authority to bet across borders, but we can have a challenge.” So I did do that. I’m waiting for my hat to come in the mail. I’m going to have to do a mea culpa. But no, otherwise, we were all there. All there for the Blue Jays.
Elizabeth Hall
Well, I’m sorry that we’ll miss the hat. As you talked about, you’ve undertaken a number of once-in-a-generation changes, both technological changes and policy changes, the court’s digital transformation, and the civil justice reform. I imagine that you learned some lessons along the way. And those are lessons that can, no doubt, be helpful to justice sector leaders here and around the world, as well as business leaders here and around the world. So, I’d like to talk a little bit about your general approach. And let’s start with where to start. And I might, if I could, give some context for those in the room who work outside the justice sector, about why where to start is a difficult question in Ontario. Speaking to somebody who spent their whole career in the justice sector in Ontario, he said to me, “From an administration of justice perspective, Ontario is the most complex jurisdiction, perhaps, in the world.” That sounded outlandish to me. So then he said, “Let’s take a look. It’s vast. If I drew a line from Windsor to your northernmost court, and took that line and flipped it, you’d go through seven states. If your ministry were a law firm, it would be twice as large as the next largest law firm in Ontario by number of lawyers. You can take the subway, and theoretically, the LRT, to some of your courthouses, and you have to fly into other court locations. You officially run three courts from the back end in two languages, but your court interpretation team translates into more than 200 languages for court operations. You regulate five—-well, you have legislative authority and a legislative role for five regulated professions. You do the back end for three levels of court. Both of those are tricky partnerships, with lines that are tricky to draw, and easy to cross.” So, now that I’ve put you at ease, I want to ask you, when you came to the door determined to reform, and you opened the door and saw that, you must have asked yourself, where do I start? And how did you answer that question? Would you answer it the same way now?
The Hon. Doug Downey
I think I would answer it the same way. So, when I came to government, I came to make change. And I actually said to the premier, right at the front end—and I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if I would be a PA, not a PA, be a minister. And I just didn’t know. And so, I was having this conversation. I said, “Give me something to fix. Don’t give me something to manage.” And that’s what I wanted. So, as things evolved, I started off in finance, PA finance to Vic Fedeli. And then a year later, I landed in this very privileged spot. So, I was looking for things to fix. I had a basket of things that more or less annoyed me a lot about the system. So, I had things that I wanted to start on right away. And once you change how things change, once you change how you think about stuff, and the department comes along with you.
And when I first became attorney general, I phoned all the former attorney generals. And I knew Chris Bentley through setting up the LPP program. And I knew some of the others. I knew Marion Boyd a little bit. And so, I phoned her. And I said, “Any advice?” And she said, “Trust the professionals in your department. They’re always the odd one who’s got their own agenda. But most of them are professionals.” She said, “That’s one of the mistakes that we made is we purged the institutional knowledge, because we weren’t sure that we could trust them.” And so, I took that to heart. And I really do trust. And that’s how this digital transformation has happened. The department has done it along with our justice partners. So yeah, I’d do the exact same thing over again.
Elizabeth Hall
A lot of the change that we’ll all face in the coming years and that we’re facing now will be technological. So, I want to focus in on your technological transformation for a minute. I’m going to start with a little bit of internet wisdom I picked up, which is that ready is not a fixed state, it’s a decision. You talked about the headlines that you often see when big transformation, big technological transformation in government or business goes wrong, where they’ve answered that, where they pressed the button at the wrong time. How did you get the comfort necessary to answer the question, or to say, I am ready?
The Hon. Doug Downey
Yeah, I’ve got a pretty high risk level, obviously. You know, we launched iGaming months before the election. So, that alone was a high risk move. And it has played out very well. Joseph Hillier is here. I saw him earlier. He’s head of that agency now, iGaming. Again, we’re leaders in, quite frankly, North America. We were called down to Kentucky to tell them how we did what we did in the States. So, I’ve got a high level of risk, but I also have a high level of trust. But like I ran my law firm, if my staff made a mistake, it was my mistake; if they did something great, they get acknowledged. And so, they got to know that that was the case. People will tell you things, if you’re open to it, and have an iterative discussion. On social media, people send me stuff through DMs. I check my own DMs. I got something this morning on something through LinkedIn from somebody—to be honest, I’m not sure who he is. But that’s okay. Like, so—but constant intake. I never pretend that I actually know something that somebody else in the sector knows. And I, Ithink that’s the key, is constant communication.
Elizabeth Hall
And with, as you say, other governmental departments following suit on digital transformation, with governments around the world following suit on digital transformation, do you have one piece of advice for businesses who are looking to—or other stakeholders who are looking to partner with government on technological change?
The Hon. Doug Downey
Yeah. It was a fundamental decision, when we came to the, to the core digital transformation, to the filing, and whatnot. We had to decide, do we do a bespoke piece, do we code it ourselves, or do we take an off the shelf and make it work? And I strongly believe that you take the off the shelf. Not just because it will work, but because it will be maintained. I’ve seen a lot of systems in history where somebody does a bespoke piece, and that knowledge goes out the door when the person retires, or something else. So, that fundamental piece, I would say, that’s how you build a system. You work off the best of somebody else, but it has to be sustainable.
Elizabeth Hall
And I’ve never heard you talk about your legacy, Minister, but I’ve heard many others talk about your legacy. And the opinions on what your ultimate legacy will be are as broad as the perspectives of this province. So, as broad as the number of practice areas in the justice sector. What—and I know your legacy. I know you’ll want to measure your legacy by impact. So, what will success look like for you?
The Hon. Doug Downey
I am not worried about legacy, quite frankly. If you talk about a change that happened 15 years ago in government, a great change, you’d be hard pressed to say who did it, right? I was talking to Arthur Wishart, who was clearly passionate about franchise law, because they named it after him, the Arthur Wishart Act—which is not in my ministry. I don’t have control over that. Please don’t lobby me on it. No, I’m really not. And so, some of you will know that Doug Lewis, who had been the Minister of Justice under Brian Mulroney, was a law partner of mine; we founded a law firm together in 2001. And he was, embedded in me the sense of urgency you’re just passing through. Do what you can, when you can. Do it right away. Everybody’s passing through. And so, that’s really what it’s about. I’m not, I’m not worried about one thing or another. But I do clip the Twitter trolls. Jack and I keep a folder of the Twitter trolls, the best of the negative. We’ll have a session on that someday. So, maybe that’s my legacy. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen.
Elizabeth Hall
But in terms of how you would like Ontario to look, compared to before you took the chair.
The Hon. Doug Downey
Oh. I, I want, I want us to approach change differently. The collaboration we have between the Attorney General’s office and the Chief Justice Office, I think—and I’ve heard this from third parties, say—it’s never been like this. If that’s the legacy that we’ve found a way to work together to move it all, that would be fantastic.
Elizabeth Hall
That was one of the examples I wrote down and decided to skip over. But that’s right. I’m valuing that at a time where that’s so badly undervalued. It’s often easy for us to draw a line from the rule of law and from the efficient administration of justice to civil society, to people’s lives. And you, in your remarks, talked a lot about how you’re improving the lives, particularly of the vulnerable. But the late great mind and heart of the justice system, Peter Hogg, used to remind us it is the rule of law and it is the effective administration of justice that gives the certainty and the predictability and the remedy necessary for any commercial transaction, from buying a chocolate bar to a major M&A project. Help us draw the line between your reforms and the strong economy Ontarians are worried about right now.
The Hon. Doug Downey
Yeah. People want predictability, right? You wouldn’t invest. You’re seeing people hold back. You’re seeing companies hold on to cash. You’re seeing things not happen because they’re not sure. I talked to some of the lawyers who have big clients who, when they find out how the system operates or doesn’t operate, they’re picking jurisdictions. They’re making decisions about where to put their money. Money is so liquid. Investments are so movable that they make real choices in real time. And timing matters, as well as stability. That’s why we launched iGaming when we did. Because I had a sense that if we didn’t move it then, it was going to move away. We were going to miss the window. It doesn’t sit and wait for you. Things are fast. For those of you who have been practicing law for a long time, you’ll remember, you used to get a letter, and you’d read it, and you’d write a response, and you would send it back. And now, people get upset if I don’t return their text in 10 minutes, right? The world is like that. And the money moves at that speed. So, it’s directly connected. How our system functions, the answers they get to the problems they have. If we’re not moving at that speed, we’re going to miss the window, and they’re going to go somewhere else.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Elizabeth Hall
Thank you. And I am a big proponent of following laws. And I’ve been told with five minutes left, I should turn to audience questions, so I will. What strategies would you implement to address the ongoing case backlog at the Landlord and Tenant Board? You talked a little bit about that already. And have there been any notable updates or improvements since 2022? You addressed a little bit of that already, as well.
The Hon. Doug Downey
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mentioned that we’ve got, we have the backlog down by 80%, we’re coming to steady state. But the way we got there, and it will continue, is that we doubled the number of adjudicators. We went from 40 to 80 full-time; we still have over 50 part-time. That is a permanent fixture. That wasn’t a temporary measure to get the backlog down. So, that piece will continue. We invested in a $28 million system in the background to run it. It actually, at one point, the system we were left with crashed. They had to hand bomb everything. Nobody really knows that. But we were already in motion with the new system. And it was something that now Premier Eby, he was the AG at the time in BC, we made a deal. And so, we adopted part of their system. And so, those investments, that’s how we’re going to get there. And then we’re doing real changes. The rebalancing of relationships between landlords and tenants—you’ve probably read about some of it in the news—but it’s a necessary readjustment. So, we’re doing that. And that’ll help it move faster. I could spend half an hour on a landlord-tenant board. We’re doing great stuff there.
Elizabeth Hall
And the second of two audience questions actually made my lightning round list. A little segment I like to call, “You’re Talking to the AG, We’ll Ask Him This.” And so, the first King’s Council appointment. Are more coming?
The Hon. Doug Downey
Stay tuned. It’s a complicated, complicated world. We have two minutes. I’ve got a great story with King’s Council on why it stopped. But we’ll save that for another day.
Elizabeth Hall
Well, the other, the audience question was the timeline for Civil Rules reform.
The Hon. Doug Downey
Yeah, Civil Rules reform. We have to move forward, because we have to fix it, right? And I talked about the imperative of speed for that. So, we got the report. We’ll digest it. We’ll get the stuff out to the public. We’re not going to lose momentum. We had when Chief Justice Morawetz and I started this project, I had people say, you’re not going to get through that for seven years. Like you won’t even get to the options until seven years. And here we are two years later with phenomenal options. So, we’re going to keep the momentum. I don’t want to put stakes in the ground in terms of May of this year, or something like that. But this is a high, high priority for both of us. And so it’s going to keep moving at that speed.
Elizabeth Hall
And do you want to tell your King’s Council story? As you know, the premier set a very high standard for justice sector stories here. So, if you have a citizen’s arrest story, I’m going to insist that that bump the King Council story. But otherwise….
The Hon. Doug Downey
We are very hands on government. Yes. We, look, you know what, I don’t know if I can tell a story. It was told to me by somebody who was a very close friend of Lincoln Alexander. And so when Premier Peterson stood up and said we’re getting rid of the King’s Council, there was a conversation with the Lieutenant Governor of the day, who suggested that although it may pass for second and third reading, there may be a problem at the signing. That’s the story I was told. Maybe Mr. Peterson will tell me otherwise, but that’s what I was told.
Elizabeth Hall
Look, a good king being a fair story is as good as a citizen’s arrest any day.
The Hon. Doug Downey
If you haven’t heard a rumor, start a rumor.
Elizabeth Hall
So, with the last 32 seconds, I’ll continue my lightning round. What is the legal definition of 6-7?
The Hon. Doug Downey
Ah. You know, moving—the program, like moving the justice system forward decades in six or seven years.
Elizabeth Hall
Perfect. Perfect. And I think that is our time. So, I’m going to turn it back over to Saurabh.
Saurabh Popat
Wow. What a great dialogue. Thank you so much. Thank you to the Honourable Doug Downey and Elizabeth Hall for an incredible discussion, reflection, and look ahead. Today’s conversation showed what it means to lead meaningful change, to take a system rooted in tradition and reimagine it for a new generation. The progress we’ve seen in Ontario’s justice system reflects years of collaboration, persistence, and a shared belief that access to justice must evolve alongside the society that it serves. We’re grateful to both of you for sharing your insights and perspectives with us today.
Now, I’d like to invite our Lead Sponsor representative to offer a few appreciation remarks. We’re joined by Gavin Tighe, senior partner and chair of the litigation and dispute resolution group at Gardiner Roberts LLP. Mr. Tighe is one of Canada’s most respected litigators, certified as a specialist in civil litigation, and has appeared as a lead counsel at every level of court in the country, including the Supreme Court of Canada. He’s known as a lawyer’s lawyer, an advocate recognized for his skill, integrity, and deep commitment to the rule of law. Please join me, in welcoming Gavin to the podium.
Note of Appreciation by Gavin Tighe, K.C., Partner & Co-Chair, Litigation & Dispute Resolution Group, Gardiner Roberts LLP
Thanks so much. Pretty tough act to follow—or tough acts to follow. It’s very exciting to be here today with the minister, and this is a truly a great initiative. I’ve been practicing law now for a very long time. And I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Minister Downey, both as an AG and as a person. I think he’s probably going to—if there’s a legacy that I can say probably the most impactful attorney general that I can certainly recall in my career. And I think the most important qualification that he brings to the table is he’s actually been a lawyer, he practiced law. And I love the story that just came out that you were actually a court clerk. I can’t imagine better training ground to know how the court system works on the, literally on the ground, than being a court clerk and having to deal with the problems of people trying to walk in file documents, et cetera. That is an invaluable experience. So, there’s a lot of politicians with law degrees, but I think this is a, very few politicians who are actually lawyers. And I think Doug Downey brings that common sense need to actually get things done, for real solutions that actually serve the people. And that’s what the AG’s office, in fact that’s what all government should be focused on. So, most importantly with Minister Downey, I’ve seen him listen to people. I’ve seen him listen to practitioners, associate justices who really are the frontline judges dealing with the problems. And we’ve got such a great partnership here with the two chief justices of the province. I think that’s a phenomenal alliance, frankly, that is long overdue. And no one can argue that the justice system as it’s currently—well, I say non-functioning, needs to get back to a healthy and sustainable system.
The system, perhaps, you know, you could say has collapsed almost under its own weight. We’ve seen enormous growth of population, et cetera in our province. But the key for me, as a practitioner, is this concept of due process. So, how much process is an individual case due? And that’s due with a D-U-E. So, Minister Downey with his partners, the chief justices, Justice Morawetz, and have come up with what I can see, listened to the bar and the bench and drawn on—and frankly, Justice Morawetz and I go back way back to the commercial list way back, years ago—on the practical commercial list sort of three C’s, if we recall those, to bring to the real question of how do we do process? And I’m gonna say that with a D-O, rather than a D-U-E. So, we need a reset using technology and a practical approach to not just fix but completely reset our justice system. Because I think as everyone’s alluded to, a functioning civil justice system is a pillar of the economy. Investors in Ontario need to know there is a system that works, and that the rule of law is alive and well, and actually functioning in real time.
So, I applaud Minister Downey for this much needed reset. An ambitious project to be sure, and one that will most certainly have growing pains, but the time for patches and makeshift fixes, frankly, is over. So, congratulations on moving our justice system from the 19th century to the 21st century, from what I’m gonna say the quill pen to the cloud, and fundamentally changing how we “do” process. Quite an achievement. Thank you.
Concluding Remarks by Saurabh Popat
Thank you, Gavin. Thank you again to our panellists, sponsors, and of course, to all of you for joining us. I’d also like to take a moment to recognize the students and young leaders joining us here today. Their presence is made possible through our charitable arm, the Empire Club Foundation, and the generosity of our donors. This support enables us to invite future leaders to take part in today’s dialogue and to empower them to turn knowledge into leadership that shines in communities, boardrooms, and national conversations shaping Canada’s future.
To stay connected, please subscribe to our newsletter by scanning the QR code on your tables. We also have an exciting new membership program, so please see our staff at the registration desk for more information about that.
I also hope that you’ll join us for two exciting upcoming events. On November 20th, we have one of the AG’s colleagues, the Honourable Prabmeet Sarkaria, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation for “Protecting Ontario with Historic Investments in Transportation Infrastructure.” He’ll share how record investments in transit, highways, and bridges, are helping build a stronger, more resilient Ontario. And then looking ahead on November 27th, we’ll have Ana Bailão, the new CEO of Build Canada Homes, who will share her bold vision of Canada’s new federal housing agency, turning policy and programs into places to live. Tickets for both events are on sale now.
And as always, as a club of record, the all Empire Club events are available to watch and listen to on our website. A recording of today’s event will be available shortly. Thank you all for being part of today’s important conversation. Enjoy the network ring reception, and we look forward to seeing you at future events. This meeting is now adjourned. Thank you.
