In 2014, the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs did a comprehensive study on court delays. Its report is called the Runciman Report, since the Honourable Bob Runciman chaired that committee at the time. That report made 67 recommendations relating to the courts, but I don't know if even 10 of them were implemented.
Canadian courts face a number of challenges, but the main one is a culture of postponing hearings. In some domestic violence cases, hearings have been postponed 10, 15 or 20 times. Some have even been postponed 37 times—this happened in St-Jérôme, in the case of a sexual assault matter. So there's a widespread culture of postponing hearings and a lack of discipline in Canadian courts, which is what the report mentioned at the time. There's also a labour shortage in Quebec, whether it be for clerks or paralegals, for example. That being said, I think the main challenge for Canadian courts is the culture of postponing hearings. At some point, judges will have to say that enough is enough, for example in cases where a sexual assault trial has been postponed 15 or 20 times.
From what I hear from women who have been victims of domestic violence, there is an abuse of the legal process. The Quebec Minister of Justice clearly said that offenders are using legal procedures to delay trials because 50% of sexual assault victims will drop their complaint along the way. In my opinion, the Minister of Justice of Canada, in co‑operation with his provincial colleagues, must make this issue a priority, to change the habits that have developed over the past 10 or 15 years. If the continual postponement of a trial doesn't bother everyone, it does the victims, who abandon the proceedings.