Canada’s civil courts are a mess. What will it take to ensure justice is done faster?

The lawsuit went on so long that the small businessman who initiated it tried to make legal history by demanding compensation for the mental anguish caused by the legal process itself.

In Walsh v TRA – begun in 2001, ending in 2023 – the flaws of Canada’s civil justice system were writ large: legal procedures grown wildly out of proportion. Litigants, rather than the courts, steering the process. A new judge installed every few years and trying to get caught up.

The lawsuit was not overly complicated. David Walsh, a small grocer, sued his food suppliers, including Sobeys Group Inc., contending they had misrepresented, in an oral agreement, the prices they would charge him. Nor was Mr. Walsh a self-represented litigant, feeling his way through a mysterious system. His lawyer at trial and on appeal was Paul Dicks, the province’s former justice minister.

In the end, all of Mr. Walsh’s arguments failed – and far from being compensated for suffering caused by the process, he was ordered to pay the winning side’s legal costs. ”I’m not the same person I was – I’m just a shell,” Mr. Walsh said in an interview. He is now 82, and works full-time on the graveyard shift as a security guard to put food on the table.

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