The Federal Court has published for consultation in the Canada Gazette, proposed amendments to the Federal Courts Rules relating to the costs regime. The proposed changes include: i) separate sections for actions, applications, motion and appeals; ii) only three columns (instead of five currently); iii) additional assessable items; and iv) an overall increase of about 25% to costs awarded under the tariff. The changes also include replacing “Prothonotary” with “Associate Judge” in the Rules.

The publication in the Canada Gazette, “Rules Amending the Federal Courts Rules and the Federal Courts Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection Rules” also include changes to Tariff A (tariffs for access to electronic documents), changes to replace “Prothonotary” with “Associate Judge”.

As noted in the overview:

Although the proposed amendments to the tariff would result in overall increases by approximately 25% in assessed costs, these increases are not uniform and depend on the facts and circumstances of each case.

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A change is proposed to Rule 400(5) to refer to the “applicable table” rather than simply to the “table,” given that the new tariff structure includes a table for each proceeding type (actions, applications, appeals, and motions), rather than a single table covering all types.

The replacement of “Prothonotary” with “Associate Judge” reflects changes made to the Federal Courts Act that came into force in the fall of 2022.