Interventions At The Supreme Court Of Canada: Is A More Robust Assessment Coming?

Interventions have long been extremely common at the Supreme Court of Canada. Most cases will have at least a few interveners while particularly high profile or contentious cases may have as many as 15 or 20. In  Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, for example, there were 24 groups of interveners, including the Attorneys General of four provinces.

For the past several years, the Supreme Court has liberally granted motions for leave to intervene, generally on fairly standard terms. Each intervener typically has the right to file a 10-page factum. While a few interveners are only granted the right to a written factum, most interveners are also granted the right to appear at oral arguments. Previously, interveners received 10 minutes each for oral argument, while the Court's current usual practice is to only give each intervener five minutes of speaking time.