When I started as a judge, it was a nine-to-five job with no heavy lifting. That was back in 1974. Judging has completely changed: completely changed. With computers and the changes in the law and the shift in domestic cases and the way there are more long trials, it's a completely different kind of profession, or part of the profession, from what it was 30 years ago. If you go down to the courthouse now, the parking lot by eight o'clock is filled. Back 30 years ago, there were maybe two cars, and they were all waiting until ten o'clock, because all they did was just their cases and nothing more.
With pretrial conferences, case management, and with preliminary applications, the hallways are very busy. We're packed to the roof in Edmonton now; we have no room for anybody else. We have one judge for every 54,000 citizens in Alberta. Back about 1993, there was one judge for every 43,000, more or less. We were fifth in Canada at that time. We are now number one in Canada. Ontario and Quebec and British Columbia are behind us by way of the ratio. But our judges are working to full capacity.
In my case, I haven't had a holiday, because the foreman who's on the job.... If you have six people with shovels, you're going to have to have a foreman; if you have 60 people with shovels, you still have to have a foreman. I haven't had a holiday of more than ten days in over 20 years. One of the reasons is that we've had to try to maintain what we call that “lead time” that is respectable. We've been able to do it; we've been innovative. If we have to sit on Saturday, we'll sit on Saturday.
Judges are now very busy. Had it not been for the assistance of some legal students and legal counsel to assist us, we would really be behind the eight ball. In Edmonton, when I left, there wasn't one judgment that was not rendered over four months--not one. Calgary's a little different