Supreme Court of British Columbia
The Court is alive to the ongoing challenges in managing chambers practice and in particular, difficulties in obtaining hearing dates and having matters heard in a timely way once scheduled. In response, the Court has struck a Civil and Family Chambers Practice Working Group to review the current practices and procedures for both regular (short) and long chambers, and to consider potential changes with a view to providing a more timely and efficient chambers process.
The Court invites interested members of the bar, litigants, organizations, and the public to comment on the issues they see arising in chambers practice and provide suggestions for improvement. Without limiting the scope of the feedback sought, areas of particular interest include:
- Limiting regular (short) chambers to matters with time estimates of one hour or less;
- Establishing set time slots (e.g. 15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes) rather than having parties provide estimates;
- For regular (short) chambers – limiting the size of application records, limiting the number of authorities the parties may rely on and implementing province-wide virtual hearings for uncontested applications and consent orders;
- For long chambers – offering half-day bookings, increasing the availability of judges for long chambers matters, scheduling on an assize in Vancouver, earlier filing of application records, and judicial application management in advance of hearing for lengthy/complex matters;
- For all chambers matters, stricter enforcement of existing rules, e.g. page limits for notices of application and application responses, requiring properly formed legal bases, eliminating serial affidavits and strict enforcement of time estimates.
The Court is aware of the significant interest in implementing an online booking system for long chambers matters, similar to what has been in place since November 2024 for trials. The Court supports moving to an online system and is awaiting the necessary funding to upgrade the current booking system.
Comments can be provided by email to Chambersfeedback@bccourts.ca until September 5, 2025.
Chief Justice Ron A. Skolrood Supreme Court of British Columbia