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New Courthouse Oakville
A long-awaited and desperately needed new Halton courthouse was one of the earliest victims of the pandemic.
In May 2020 – only weeks before construction was to begin – the provincial government cancelled plans to build a modern new 32-room Oakville courthouse intended to replace crumbling and undersized facilities in Burlington and Milton.
Years of consultation, planning and design had gone into what was to be a state-of-the-art facility built on provincially owned land on Third Line, north of the hospital.
At the time, the government said it would be investing in "new and innovative ways of delivering justice remotely and online" but promised to address longstanding problems with Halton's two existing courthouses.
Then a recurring mould problem forced the closure of the Milton courthouse for remediation, and the province turned to renting the Burlington Convention Centre to house most of the region's justice operations.
Repairs to the courthouse, plagued by water leaks and mould for years, were to be completed by late fall 2021.
That deadline is now in the rearview mirror, and the Steeles Avenue courthouse remains closed, with its windows boarded over. The latest target is for a March 2022 re-opening.
But critics say the province is wasting money fixing mould when it has no evident plan to address the shortage of courtrooms, inadequate facilities and technological challenges in Milton.
"That building was outdated decades ago," says Brendan Neil.
The local criminal defence lawyer, Halton's representative on the Criminal Lawyers Association, has been in a Milton courtroom when a chunk of the ceiling came down.
"They could be working on a new courthouse instead, rather than replacing a relic that, on most people's thought pattern, should have been condemned rather than rehabbed," he says.
“It just seems to be spending more money now, just to spend money later.”
'Fastest growing region' requires new justice facility
Last month, Halton regional councillors reissued a call for the province to invest in "a new court facility that is adequate to meet the needs both current and future" of the region's rapidly growing population.
It's a plea that councillors have been issuing since at least 2015.
This latest version points out that the Milton facility is "inadequate and unsafe in many measures," including its courtrooms, access points, prisoner holding areas and space for judges.
It also urges the province to "deliver this new court facility in a timely fashion in order to address the ongoing and ever-growing issues, including serious health and safety issues, with the current facility."
There's little dissent that the digital modernization forced onto the court system by the pandemic was long overdue.
Email communications, digital filings and virtual hearings have updated a pre-pandemic system that was still reliant on fax machines and face-to-face appearances just to set future court dates.
Some new challenges have emerged. Digital justice can place a heavy burden on vulnerable people who are forced to buy cell minutes or find other ways to fund access to their trials, said Neil. Still, he says, the transition has been largely productive and effective.
"I've conducted a number of trials through Zoom, and they've gone very well and quite smoothly," he says. "It's gone much better than I thought it would. I was incredibly wary of Zoom trials."
But both Neil and Melissa Fedsin, president of the Halton County Law Association, are concerned that the Milton courthouse won't have the technology to manage a modernized version of justice.
In the past, concrete walls and asbestos in the building have been barriers to improving technology. Even providing lawyers with courtroom wifi access has been problematic.
"There's been a lot of technological developments over the course of the pandemic and we're going back to an aged courthouse," says Fedsin. "I don't even know how it's going to support the developments that we've made."
Melissa Fedsin
A potential election issue?
Beyond vague promises about future announcements, the government has offered little in the way of communication since the cancellation.
Back in November 2020, the Ministry of the Attorney General responded to a series of very specific questions from Oakville News with a sweeping but unclear promise.
"The Attorney General looks forward to sharing the government's vision for a truly reimagined justice system in the coming months."
That vision has never been announced and even justice partners like the local law association say they don't know what the province's plan is.
"We've largely been left in the dark, which is one of our main concerns," says Fedsin, a lawyer specializing in family law.
A series of "innovation workshops" scheduled last fall sought some feedback on ways to improve the Milton facility and offered the suggestion that an addition might possibly be in the works.
But after two sessions the workshop series was cancelled and promised further information hasn't been forthcoming, Fedsin says.
The region's call for a new courthouse was circulated widely, including to Oakville's Conservative MPP Stephen Crawford, who will be looking to win back his seat in June's scheduled provincial election.
"I always appreciate what councillors have to say but you know, its normal that councillors are always going to ask for more," said Crawford, when we asked for his response.
He added that the province has invested significantly in digital court services and will be making modifications to existing infrastructure to accommodate the new processes.
It's the sort of answer that has Fedsin suggesting that there's potential for the courthouse to be an issue in the upcoming election.
Cancellation of the Oakville courthouse was "beyond disappointing" and Halton residents deserve to have respectable, functional facilities, she says.
"We are a large and growing community and residents want to see that the province is invested in this community," she said.
