You are right. That is sort of along the same lines as what Mr. MacDonald was saying, that the pandemic has had varying impacts. The impact has obviously been much more intense for trial courts, for the obvious reasons you have mentioned, including witness attendance.
When it comes to appeal courts across the country, they have had to adapt to the new platforms, which has required some dexterity. Now that the system is in place, it is true that they have done their best to hold hearings without it leading to delays like those we can imagine during trial.
I would add to this that there are sometimes hybrid formats. In the Supreme Court of Canada, members of the court have continued to preside in person—in other words, they would all be in the hearing room, which was reconfigured to meet health guidelines—and lawyers argued remotely, so as not to have to travel from their province to Ottawa.
Of course, bar association representatives will tell you that it's not the same thing. Someone can prefer to argue in person instead of through virtual platforms. Nevertheless, there have been very few delays.
Since we are painting a broad picture, I would add that this is also true when it comes to administrative tribunals. A large number of federal administrative tribunals managed to catch up in the context of the pandemic. As they did not have to hear from witnesses, they held their hearings through things like virtual platforms, and there were more presentations electronically, they managed to do a great deal of catching up.
So although the pandemic is leaving more negative traces, some benefits have come out of it, and a certain number of realizations are here to stay.