This fact sheet is based on publicly available data from Statistics Canada. It examines data from
2020–2021 ─ the first year following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, public
health measures were put into place, which temporarily closed, postponed and/or restricted
Canadian court proceedings. As a result, there was an unprecedented decline in the number of
adult court cases, particularly in the first few months of 2020. It is important to keep this context
in mind when interpreting the data in this fact sheet.