It is usually the second question people ask, and the honest answer is months rather than weeks. What most people are not told is that there is a legal ceiling on how long the Crown has — and that it is one of the more useful things to understand about your own case.
Is there a legal time limit on a criminal case?
Yes. In R v Jordan the Supreme Court of Canada set presumptive ceilings measured from the date of the charge to the anticipated end of trial:
- 18 months for a case tried in the provincial court without a preliminary inquiry — in Ontario, the Ontario Court of Justice;
- 30 months for a case in the superior court, or in the provincial court following a preliminary inquiry.
Delay beyond the ceiling is presumptively unreasonable. The Crown must then establish exceptional circumstances, and if it cannot, the remedy for a breach of the section 11(b) Charter right to be tried within a reasonable time is a stay of proceedings.
Two things matter about this. Delay caused by the defence is subtracted, so adjournments you ask for do not count toward the ceiling. And below the ceiling the onus flips — it is for the defence to show the delay was unreasonable.
What are the stages of a criminal case in Ontario?
Canadian procedure is not the American process people recognise from television. There is no "booking", no grand jury, and no arraignment in the American sense. In Ontario, police lay the charge and the Crown then decides whether to prosecute.
- Charge and release. You are released by police on an undertaking or held for a bail hearing, which must be held without unreasonable delay.
- First appearance. Administrative. No evidence is heard and no plea is expected. See our Brampton courthouse guide.
- Disclosure. The Crown provides its case. This frequently takes several appearances, particularly where there is video or phone evidence.
- Crown pre-trial. Defence counsel and the Crown discuss resolution and narrow the issues.
- Judicial pre-trial. A judge helps focus the case and estimate trial length.
- Resolution or trial date. Most matters resolve. Those that do not are set for trial, and the wait for a date depends on court capacity.
What actually drives the timeline?
- How the Crown elects. A summary matter normally moves faster than an indictable one.
- Whether there is a preliminary inquiry. Since 2019 a preliminary inquiry is only available where the offence is punishable by 14 years or more, which narrowed the number of cases that take the longer route.
- Disclosure volume. A file with body-worn camera footage, cell tower records or a phone extraction takes longer to produce and longer to review.
- Charter applications. An application to exclude evidence adds written materials and hearing time.
- Court capacity. Trial dates are set by what the court has available, not by what anyone wants.
- Expert evidence, which has to be commissioned, produced and disclosed.
Should you try to speed your case up?
Not always, and this surprises people. A case that resolves quickly on the first offer is not necessarily a case that resolved well. Disclosure sometimes arrives late and changes the picture; a weakness may only be visible once everything has been produced.
Equally, delay is not a strategy. Running a case toward the ceiling in the hope of a stay is not a plan, because defence delay is deducted and exceptional circumstances can extend it.
What is worth doing is keeping the case moving on your side: attending every date, complying with conditions, and giving your lawyer instructions promptly. Adjournments attributed to the defence cost you the very protection the ceiling provides.
What should you do while you wait?
- Attend every court date. Missing one produces a warrant and a separate charge.
- Follow your release conditions exactly — a breach is usually easier for the Crown to prove than the original allegation.
- If a condition is unworkable, apply to vary it rather than ignoring it.
- Where relevant, start counselling or a programme now. On sentencing, work already completed carries far more weight than work promised.
Cases take time. What you do during that time is one of the few parts of the process you control.