Provincial government spending on court construction has varied wildly over the years.
From just $10.6 million in 2003-04, the year the Liberals took power from the former Conservative government, to almost $300 million in 2011-12, it’s clear that spending on court facilities has trended upward over the last decade. More recently, spending has fallen with projections for the current year at $77.1 million. The decrease follows a few years of significant investments in new courthouses, particularly in Durham, Elgin, Waterloo, Quinte, and Thunder Bay, Ont.
In fact, spending on court construction was almost $35 million in 2002-03, the last full year the former Conservative government was in power, and had fallen to just $10.3 million in 2005-06. The current numbers, then, look pretty good by comparison.
It’s arguable, of course, that the higher spending in recent years was simply a case of the government needing to address the backlog of projects that had emerged as a result of the lower expenditures in the past, as saving money today often means deferring expenses to the future.
Nowhere is that more true than in Halton Region, where lawyers say court facilities are far out of date given the area’s fast-growing population. With concerns about mould in parts of the courthouse emerging, it’s clear there are significant problems there. For its part, the province has downplayed the health and safety concerns about the mould but says addressing the facility issues in Halton is a priority for the Ministry of the Attorney General.
For many lawyers, that’s not good enough. While the province deserves significant credit for the new courthouses it has built and its commitments to facilities in Toronto and Brampton, Ont., it needs to be clearer about its plans for places such as Halton as well as northern Ontario, where there are also significant concerns about court infrastructure.
It’s a difficult balance, of course, as the province doesn’t have a lot of money and there will always be calls to modernize all sorts of facilities. But as the calls for action in Halton grow louder, it’s time for the government to go beyond saying the area is a priority to specify what it’ll do and when it’ll do it.
For more, see "
Court construction spending falls as Halton nears 'crisis situation'" and "
Lawyers happy as new courthouse moves forward."
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Glenn Kauth
