What is the difference between the defence and the defence between the two continuation dates for a Charter application?

Between the first trial date February 17, 2006 and the second continuation date August 28, 2006, some five months of this delay are attributable to the defence. In my view, all the delays thereafter to the end of the trial December 8, 2006 are reasonable and certainly, as expressed, well within the Chief Judge’s guidelines as above. I have been given no case authority that clearly states, as here, that where both counsel grossly miscalculate the trial time that a given case requires, and there is likely a partially causal factor contributing to this situation, here the Regina v. Boucher decision, that the delay should be calculated and laid equally at the feet of both counsel. Likewise, I have been given no case that has such a fact pattern as in the case at bar. I prefer to look at this delay time arising from both counsel miscalculating the trial time as a neutral factor which neither supports nor weakens the application before me. In my view, great care must be taken by trial judges on Section 11(b) Charter applications dealing with this point. Judges at arraignment hearings want lawyers to do their very best to accurately estimate trial time. If done, the scarce resource of trial time can be fairly parcelled out to all citizens. But it is an art I think and not a science to accurately estimate trial time. The public good is not served in punishing one lawyer (without good reason) whose estimate is wrong if there is any future risk that he or she will simply lard on additional hours or days on any given case at an arraignment hearing so as to not run short so-to-speak. That would lead, in my view, to even more institutional delay in the system for all members of the public.