Manitoba's court clerk shortage creating judicial delays, says chief judge

A significant shortage in provincial court clerks has been causing delays in parts of the province for months, but those delays are starting to be felt in Winnipeg — and they're having an impact on the administration of justice.

The problem came to a head last week, when some courtrooms in Winnipeg couldn't start hearings on time, provincial court Chief Judge Ryan Rolston said.

"[It] really forced us to really start to make some very difficult choices about the way that we conduct our court proceedings across and throughout the building," Rolston said Saturday.

One courtroom, which oversees bail hearings, will be shut down next week, Rolston said. Bail hearings will still proceed, but they will be filtered through one courtroom because there aren't enough clerks.

Trials will have precedence over bail hearings.

"It's in the best interest of both the accused and the witnesses in many of these trials that the trials proceed when they're scheduled to proceed," Rolston said. "And unfortunately, we're making a choice between two very difficult propositions, but we've decided that proceeding with the trials is more important right now."

The full complement of provincial court clerks is normally 49, but there are currently 14 vacancies, Rolston said.

A provincial spokesperson confirmed those numbers, noting the 49 is supposed to consist of 46 regular positions and three casual ones.

Manitoba Justice has "significantly increased efforts to recruit, hire and train employees" and is developing a new recruitment and retention strategy, the spokesperson said in an email, but did not offer any additional information such as what that strategy will look like or when it will be completed.

They also did not respond to CBC's question about how the current shortage is impacting the judicial system.

This past Thursday, there were just five clerks working at the Winnipeg Law Courts, according to defence lawyer Scott Newman.

With so many vacancies, Newman said some clerks, such as those in Brandon, Dauphin or Portage la Prairie, have had to appear remotely in the past week, and do paperwork where they are. It isn't ideal.

"That causes difficulties for following along the proceedings, making sure things are recorded appropriately. It's just a much more needlessly difficult way to run the court system," he said.

7 new clerks hired

Though seven new provincial court clerks have been hired recently, Rolston said it could be some time before some of the new hires are working inside a courtroom.

"The difficulty is that the training process of course also is quite robust. Clerks do a lot for us," Rolston said.

Court clerks run the audio recording equipment, complete paperwork and gather all of the exhibits filed in court proceedings.

They are essential to the judicial process, Newman said.

"It has a significant knock-on effect that it stops other people who have very vital jobs from being productive because we're missing one person."

Both Newman and Rolston said several clerks have left their posts for various reasons, but Newman said some have gone over to work as support staff for Crown lawyers — which he said likely offers more pay and less stress.

"So as a result, Crown prosecutors might be well staffed with respect to support staff, but the court staff is underfunded and under-resourced."

Poor salary, high stress

But Newman doesn't fault clerks for leaving their post and seeking employment elsewhere.

The stresses that court clerks deal with are challenging, Newman said.

"The things that they're hearing are challenging, high stress with the types of evidence that they might hear, whether it's child sexual abuse or homicide or other kinds of traumatic hearings.… It's also a stressful position because the hours can sometimes go long," he said.

"If you have a choice between a job with those stresses or a job working at a Crown attorney's office as a support staff where you get to go home at 4:30 [p.m.], why wouldn't you take the job that's not only better paid, but less stressful?"

Diane Delaronde, who was a court clerk in Manitoba from 1985 to 2021, said although she liked her job, poor salary, high stress and burnout brought down morale.

"There was a lot of pressure," she said. "You're just scared. You're scared of making a mistake."

Delaronde said she remembers listening to a recording of a woman screaming on a 911 call one day in court.

"Just the shrillness and the sheer terror in her voice, you just don't forget that," she said.

Before she retired, Delaronde said she sent an email listing her concerns about the job to her supervisor and other management, but clerks still on the job have told her not much has changed.

"It's like working where everything is on fire, and you're drowning," she said.

Newman said there needs to be equality between the funding and resourcing for Crown prosecutors, the defence bar, the courts and administration.

"If there's not a balance between those things and there's outflows of people or resources from one to the other, it tips the whole delicate balance of the machinery of justice into disarray," Newman said. "It doesn't work."

For Rolston, the government needs to focus on recruitment.

"What I think is important is that the government understands just how valuable the clerks are and the complexity of the job that they do. It's not just a job; it's a career," he said.