The FC is a national, bilingual, bijural, superior court of record, which hears and decides legal disputes arising in the federal domain. Its jurisdiction derives primarily from the Federal Courts Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. F-7, although over 100 other federal statutes also confer jurisdiction on the Court. It has original, but not exclusive jurisdiction, over proceedings by and against the Crown (including Aboriginal law claims), and proceedings involving admiralty and intellectual property law. It has exclusive jurisdiction to hear certain national security proceedings and applications for judicial review of the decisions of federal commissions, tribunals and boards. Further information on the FC can be found at www.fct-cf.gc.ca.

Table 2 below provides an overview of the workload of the FC by fiscal year.

TABLE 2: FEDERAL COURT WORKLOAD

2020—21 2019—20 2018—19 2017—18 2016—17
Proceedings Instituted or Filed 8,100 33,727 33,088 25,961 28,304
General Proceedings and Immigration 7,732 9,511 8,866 7,440 7,329
Income Tax Act certificates 18 14,966 15,394 11,580 13,551
Excise Tax Act certificates 98 8,981 8,513 6,620 7,111
Other instruments and certificates 252 269 315 321 313
Court Judgments, Orders and Directions Processed by the Registry 16,140 22,851 19,599 17,157 17,826
Files prepared for hearing and heard in Court 2,981 4,010 3,602 3,506 3,476
Days in Court 2,347 2,905 2,741 2,436 2,885
Recorded Entries 170,612 263,652 245,497 212,787 233,241
Total Dispositions – General Proceedings and Immigration 5,981 8,417 7,370 8,377 7,547
Active Proceedings as of March 31
Aboriginal 252 238 244 233 240
Other appeals provided for by law 71 68 57 64 60
Citizenship 45 33 27 52 351
Admiralty 181 178 181 190 204
Intellectual property 472 516 552 547 520
Immigration and refugee 5,821 4,140 3,264 2,616 2,238
Crown 624 781 689 492 376
Judicial Review 777 893 858 927 763
Patented Medicines Regulations 68 63 32 45 20
Total 8,311 6,910 5,904 4,711 5,772
Status as of March 31
Not perfected 4,327 4,310 3,799 3,266 3,405
Perfected 2,694 653 577 289 236
Consolidated 125 145 118 81 909
Reserved 151 222 214 101 137
Scheduled for hearing 501 501 354 404 453
Stayed 513 1079 842 570 632
Total 8,311 6,910 5,904 4,711 5,772

Source: Proceedings Management System