🇨🇦 1,400 Complaints Against Federally Appointed Judges Last Year — A 42% Jump and Almost None Punished

The Canadian Judicial Council received 1,399 complaints against federally appointed judges in 2025 — a 42% increase from the 985 filed in 2024. Of those, 974 were closed during the year, and the CJC dismissed nearly all of them. Seven reached a hearing panel. Seven. Out of 1,399. One Ontario judge waited 14 months to correct an unlawful prison sentence — the wrong number of years handed to a man convicted of manslaughter — and received a public reprimand. He had not apologized to the man he wrongly sentenced at the time the panel ruled.

The CJC's spokesperson attributed the complaint surge partly to raised public awareness of the system. That is one interpretation. Another is that Canadians have noticed their judiciary operates as a self-protective guild with minimal accountability, astronomical delays, and a complaint process designed to exhaust complainants rather than discipline judges. A system where a judge can deny making a political donation until his own tax records prove otherwise — and still face no removal — is not a system built for public confidence. It is a system built for judicial comfort.

🍁 Maple Chronicles