Law360 Canada (September 30, 2026, 11:53 AM EDT) -- Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté says she finds intervener advocacy on Zoom to be as effective as oral submissions made in the courtroom, but she is also alive to contrary arguments made by legal organizations, such as the Canadian Bar Association and The Advocates’ Society.
Since 2022, bar groups, lawyers for frequent interveners and many interveners themselves have gone on record
to oppose the high court’s decision that year not to allow intervener counsel to appear in the flesh before the judges — continuing a pandemic-era policy that the court no longer applies to lawyers for the main parties, who are given the hybrid option of advocating virtually or in person in the courtroom.
“I’m not saying … there aren’t good points on both positions,” Justice Côté says of the bar’s so-far unsuccessful campaign to convince the court to rescind its Zoom-only policy for intervener counsel.
Standing in the apex court’s historic courtroom in Ottawa, where she formerly argued as a barrister, Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté says that, as a judge, it ‘does not make a difference’ for her whether counsel advocate on Zoom or in person before the bench.
“Probably, if I would still be a lawyer, I would say, ‘Hey, I want to appear in person … but [a] decision has been made and it may change in the future, so we’ll see,’” Justice Côté says in a rare interview to mark her impending 12th anniversary with the court. (See Part 1 of the exclusive interview
here.)
Known as a “ferocious, extremely well-prepared and fearless” advocate during her time in practice (according to recent comments from a senior Montreal jurist), Justice Côté was appointed Dec. 1, 2014, straight from the bar to the bench, with the expectation that she would bring a practitioner’s perspective to bear at the court.
“Does [Zoom advocacy] change the attention I pay to the argument presented by interveners? No, it’s the same thing,” she says. “Speaking for myself, when I hear an intervener remotely … the lawyer sees me, and I pay as much attention as if the intervener [counsel] would be in the room with us … and if I have a question, he sees my face on the screen, and it is five minutes [of argument],” Justice Côté observes. “I have read his factum or her factum, so for me, it does not make a difference. But for the counsel I understand the points that they are making.”
The top court maintains that restricting intervener counsel to oral advocacy on Zoom for their brief five-minute appearances saves travel costs for clients and their (often pro bono) counsel, while also promoting equal access to the court by treating all interveners alike.
However, the organized bar and many interveners
have argued, to the contrary, that if the court were to extend the hybrid option to interveners, it would facilitate interveners’ access to justice, particularly since their counsel say their engagements with the judges and oral arguments are suboptimal on Zoom.
Justice Côté points out that the court has taken, for some time, a more permissive approach to accepting requests to intervene. (High-stakes appeals often feature a dozen or more interveners.)
She says she finds it effective when intervener counsel use some of their time to address one or more questions posed by the judges to other counsel earlier in the hearing. “It’s a good opportunity to use their five minutes,” she advises. “If they do it that way, [whether they are] remote or in person, [it] will have the same effect, the same impact.”
Her top three tips for advocacy at the Supreme Court? “Concentrate on your strongest issues,” she advises. “Two or three points, … and you have to insist on them. So the faux pas would be to try to use all the points that were there when you were arguing before the trial judge.”
“My second point is, don’t read your … material,” the judge remarks. “You have to take for granted that we have read the file. Speaking for myself, I’ve read everything,” she says. “So, when I arrive here, I know what the flavour was before the first judge because I read the transcript of the hearing before the first judge. I know if there were tensions in the courtroom, so take that for granted.”
“Don’t read your factum. You’re wasting your time,” she continues. “Just try to make your case like a live case. Tell me your story … and where you think that there was an error — if you are the appellant — in the court below. … Instead of reading your factum, as the appellant take this opportunity to say, ‘Hey, the respondent wrote this, this is what I have to say about their position, and I think they are wrong on this, this and this.’”
Finally, “don’t avoid questions from the court,” she emphasizes. “It’s a great opportunity, … a window on the judges’ mind.”
“Don’t get panicked because, especially at the Supreme Court, after 10 or 15 seconds, judges are starting to ask questions.”
And don’t tell the judge, “I’ll get back to that,” she advises. “It’s a faux pas, because the only thing the judge will have in mind is his famous question. So, answer it now.”
Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté, who will soon complete 12 years of service at the high court, is pictured in her seat on the bench in the top court’s iconic courtroom.
Asked to identify what she sees as three of the court’s most important contributions since her arrival at the court in 2014, Justice Côté names two high-profile cases (and their progeny) that would make most lawyers’ lists: the 5-4 Charter speedy-trial juggernaut,
R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27, and the
leading decision on standard of review,
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov,
2019 SCC 65;
Bell Canada v. Canada (Attorney General), 2019 SCC 66.
“
Vavilov did not decide everything … but it brought a lot of clarity and certainty in administrative Canadian law,” Justice Côté observes. “We still have work to do, but that is, I think a major contribution,” she says of the judicial review framework she and six colleagues co-wrote.
In companion 9-0 rulings two years ago, Justice Côté also
elaborated for the court that the
Vavilov reasonableness standard presumptively applies when reviewing the
vires of subordinate legislation.
The court has also explained how
Jordan applies in various contexts, most recently in
judgments written respectively by Justice Côté and the chief justice about the exceptions to the presumptive
Jordan time caps on net trial delay in joint trials involving multiple accused and in particularly complex criminal prosecutions:
R. v. Jacques-Taylor, 2026 SCC 20;
R. v. Vrbanic, 2026 SCC 19.
Justice Côté also cited the high court’s sentencing landmark in
R. v. Friesen, 2020 SCC 9, co-written by Chief Justice Richard Wagner and Justice Malcolm Rowe.
The apex court
instructed lower courts to be tougher when punishing sexual crimes against children, in unanimous reasons setting out principles, considerations and factors that sentencing judges are to take into account and misconceptions and myths they should avoid.
That was followed up last July with reasons in
Quebec (Attorney General) v. Denis, 2026 SCC 25, by Justices Suzanne Côté and Michelle O’Bonsawin, which 7-2 affirmed the constitutional validity of the six-month mandatory minimum penalty for those who pay to obtain — or communicate to buy — sex with persons under age 18. Their judgment
strongly disapproved of inappropriate language and concepts often used in referring to commercialized sex crimes against minors — for example, terms like “sex workers” to describe children who are victims of sexual commodification.
Justice Côté and the chief justice also
vigorously dissented last year, on behalf of four judges who disagreed with the majority’s decision to strike down the one-year mandatory minimum penalties for accessing or possessing child pornography.
“I’m very concerned about that type of crime, and we see that quite often now in our society,” Justice Côté remarks. “This is an example of a case where I cannot, in my conscience, and based on the law, I cannot [bring] myself to say that a one-year minimum sentence in jail for that type of crime is cruel and unusual [punishment], according to s. 12 of the Canadian Charter.”
Asked what major changes she has seen at the court since she joined it almost 12 years ago (Justices Côté, Wagner and Andromache Karakatsanis are the only members still on the bench from that time), Justice Côté points to innovations and public outreach in court communications since Chief Justice Wagner began leading the court in 2017. This includes the popular “Cases in Brief,” the chief justice’s annual question-and-answer session with media, and the court’s increased use of social media.
“Now it’s more open, more transparent, the communications, I would say, with the public,” the judge observes. “I think that it’s a big improvement compared to what it was.”
Also “major” was the chief justice’s idea to hold some Supreme Court hearings outside Ottawa and meet at the same time with members of the public, and members of the local bar and bench.
Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté, pictured in her seat to the left of the chief justice’s place in the top court’s conference room, doesn’t use a computer in conference, preferring to take notes by hand.
“This is something I think invaluable, the fact that we were able to do that,” she says of the nine judges’ visits to Winnipeg in 2019 and Quebec City in 2022. “People were very happy to see us and to discuss with us when we were taking the time … to have a one-on-one conversation.”
(The court will
next travel to Halifax from Sept. 20 to 24, 2027.)
Also noteworthy were changes in the court’s composition since 2014, including the emergence for the first time of a 5-4 female-majority court in 2024 when Justice Mary Moreau was appointed. (Justice Glenn Joyal’s appointment this year returned the court to a 5-4 male majority.)
And in 2022, for the first time in memory, all nine members of the Supreme Court were able to converse in both official languages and hear appeals without interpretation.
“In terms of the language, I think it makes a difference and it is a positive difference,” Justice Côté says. “In terms of the majority of women, … I don’t think it was long enough to see a difference.”
Justice Côté writes her opinions in the primary language of the appeal but says she likes writing in English “because it’s really punchy.”
Working for years in bilingual national law firms also meant she never felt at a disadvantage when she expressed her thoughts in English to her fellow judges at the court conference, she recalls.
“Since the beginning, at every conference, until I was sure that everybody was able to understand French, I was at the court conference speaking in English — except when the file was argued in French, I was speaking in French at the conference,” she notes.
As the former head of the litigation groups at Stikeman Elliott LLP and later Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Montreal, Justice Côté said she was accustomed to preparing legal opinions in English for clients.
But when she joined Stikeman in 1988, after eight years of practising in the Gaspé Peninsula, “I was able to say [in English] ‘Mary is a girl, John is a boy’ and that’s it,” the judge remembers.
She expected at the time that Stikeman would slot her into its French-speaking litigation group, but she was assigned instead to the litigation group of English speakers. “So, in three months, I learned English,” she remarks.
The judge says having a full complement of bilingual judges “makes a positive difference” on their communications. “I think everybody is comfortable now with this issue.”
The recent advent of generative artificial intelligence is another matter, as the Supreme Court and other Canadian courts grapple with the novel issues gen AI raises.
The only judge among her colleagues not to use a computer at the court’s case conferences (she takes notes by hand), Justice Côté says she doesn’t personally use AI, apart from some research.
“Do I use artificial intelligence to decide [or] to help me to decide the case? No way,” she says.
While gen AI may help to deal with case management or deadlines in litigation, “where I totally disagree would be if a judge would say, ‘Oh, I’m wondering how to decide this case, I’m going to ask ChatGPT,’” she explains. “I think that it is very important that justice continues to be delivered by human beings because there are so many human considerations.”
She cites, by way of example, sentencing cases, where a judge must take into account the aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
“I think it is just a human being who can balance this” and see how the factors should weigh, she says. “I think it is important that behind judges, we see human beings.”
Justice Côté says she stays off social media, but she is also well aware of the harms that misinformation and disinformation disseminated on such platforms can bring.
What of the growing threats to the rule of law, such as actions by the U.S. administration targeting the bar, bench and media south of the border?
“The lesson we should take from this in Canada is that we have to be more vigilant and not take anything for granted,” Justice Côté replies. “I don’t think it will happen in Canada … but it does not mean that we should sit here and do nothing about it. We have to be very vigilant,” she cautions.
What about extreme or misleading criticism of institutions and judges by politicians? “I have no problem with somebody criticizing the government, criticizing the court [or] a judge, to say, ‘Oh, this is not the law’ or ‘This decision is wrong,’” Justice Côté answers.
But “do it in a respectful way and not in a violent way,” adds the high court’s most frequent dissenter.
“I would say that I have no problem if a politician or someone else says the court is going beyond its role when it decides this [or that], but to say the court is crazy, it’s another thing,” she comments. “I don’t agree with that.”
Are there red flags on Canada’s horizon with respect to the independence of the bar or bench or the rule of law?
“If you ask me today, do I feel concerned for Canada and the rule of law in Canada? I would say no — not for the time being,” the judge answers.
“I don’t feel that there is an imminent risk that the executive will do something to put in peril my judicial independence and … I assume that my colleagues and other judges in this country, they have the same comfort about their judicial independence, so on that I have no problem.”
What could the Supreme Court of Canada do if U.S. President Donald Trump were to pursue his expressed desire to annex Canada and make it the 51st U.S. state?
“I cannot tell you if the Supreme Court can do or cannot do something,” she responds. “But I don’t think it will happen.”
“You know what?” she adds, if “it does happen, I think I’m going to retire and … sell shoes or something like that.”
Photos of Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté: Ashley Fraser Photography
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