This is general information, not legal advice, and reflects publicly available information as of November 2, 2026. The government statement was read in full on that date. The Working Group’s Final Policy Report itself was not read: its contents below come from a law-firm bulletin and are attributed to it. The newest dated source we found is the May 28, 2026 statement; if something later has been announced, it is not reflected here. Check the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Superior Court of Justice news pages before relying on any date.
What is decided, and what is not
| Item | Status in the sources we read |
|---|---|
| Final Policy Report | Released December 15, 2025 by the Civil Rules Review Working Group, according to BLG’s January 22, 2026 bulletin. A set of recommendations, not rules. |
| Three tracks, up-front evidence, pre-litigation protocols | The government is “exploring adoption.” Not announced as adopted. |
| Eleven practical measures | “Anticipated” to move forward in 2026, “to be advanced.” No dates given. |
| Timing | “Changes will be introduced in a sequenced manner,” early reforms first and “more comprehensive structural changes” later. No dates given. |
| Notice to the bar | “The bar will be provided with advance notice of any approved amendments prior to their coming into force.” |
Source for every quoted phrase in this table except the first row: the joint statement of the Attorney General and former Chief Justice Morawetz, Superior Court of Justice website, May 28, 2026. The statement does not say which individual recommendations were adopted or rejected.
The eleven measures slated for 2026
The statement lists these as practical measures to reduce delay, complexity and cost. They are the part most likely to reach your desk first.
- Heighten the accountability of parties and counsel to the court during litigation.
- Make start-of-action procedures leaner.
- Cut service expenses through technology.
- Ease the route for ending a claim or abandoning a defence on notice.
- Make it simpler for counsel to come off the record.
- Make the default judgment procedure clearer.
- Lighten the effort needed to settle disputed refusals at oral discovery.
- Establish standards for documents accompanying interim motions.
- Bring pleadings rules together in one place.
- Remove backsheets from forms where feasible.
- Clarify Rule 1.09 on out-of-court communications.
What the Working Group proposed (still only proposed)
BLG’s bulletin summarizes the Final Policy Report. We have not read the report, so treat these as the Working Group’s recommendations as described by BLG, not as rules.
| Proposal | As BLG describes it |
|---|---|
| Application Track | Statutory and comparable matters, ending in a summary hearing rather than a full trial. |
| Summary Track | “Most claims between $50,000 and $500,000,” on a standard schedule leading to a summary hearing. |
| Trial Track | All remaining claims: early scheduling conferences, targeted examinations, a traditional trial. |
| Oral discovery | Kept in limited form. On the Trial Track, “examinations would be capped at 90 minutes per party,” objections tightly restricted, all examinations audio- and video-recorded. The proposed requirement to disclose “known adverse documents” was dropped. |
| Pace | “Most two-party cases” expected to reach a dispositive hearing within two years of the close of pleadings. |
| Delay penalties | $250 per day in Trial Track matters and $100 per day in other tracks, down from the $500 per day earlier suggested. |
| Pre-litigation protocols | Expanded to apply generally, “with defined exceptions.” The earlier idea of extending the basic limitation period was dropped. |
Do not confuse it with the rule change already in force
A separate, targeted amendment, O. Reg. 275/26, is reported by Canadian Lawyer to have taken effect on September 1, 2026. It is not part of the Civil Rules Review. Among other things, it asks lawyers signing a factum to certify that quotations match the source word for word. We have not been able to read the regulation’s e-Laws text, so see our citation verification checklist and the court-by-court AI disclosure tracker for how we handle it, and confirm the wording on e-Laws.
What a litigation firm can do now
- Treat the eleven measures as the near-term list. Service, withdrawal as counsel, default judgment and motion-record standards are the daily mechanics most likely to change first.
- Keep deadline and form logic editable. If your docketing rules, precedent forms or checklists are hard-coded, find out now how long a change takes and who owns it.
- Plan for the staged rollout. The statement says changes come in sequence, so expect two different rule sets to coexist for a period; the sources do not describe how existing cases will be treated.
- Subscribe to the official notice, not a summary. The advance notice promised to the bar is the trigger date that matters.
For how litigation workflows are handled in DROZlegal, see the litigation module.