Despite having granted their counsel additional time to respond to the claim in good faith, the Ottawa Police Services Board, Steven Desjourdy, Melburn White, Christopher Tessier, and Cedric Nizman filed a request under Rule 2.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure on June 11, 2025—just days before the end of the extended timeline—seeking to have the entire action stayed or dismissed ‘on its face.’

Rule 2.1 is an extraordinary procedural mechanism, reserved for the rarest of cases—those in which a claim, on its face alone, discloses no reasonable cause of action and warrants summary dismissal without further process. It is not a tool for strategic delay, nor a means of displacing the ordinary course of pleadings, motions, and adjudication. If the claim had truly failed on its face, no extension of time would have been necessary to reach that conclusion.

Having had their counsel seek and receive additional time to assess the claim, these Defendants could not credibly assert that its alleged defects were apparent on their face. A position that requires further time to study is, by definition, not one that qualifies for summary dismissal under Rule 2.1. The filing thus invites serious scrutiny as to both the propriety of the request and the rationale for its timing.

The filing also disregarded the fact that the entire proceeding has been subject to a statutory stay under the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act, 2019 since the Statement of Claim was issued on April 29, 2025. That stay had already paused all steps in the action pending adjudication of our motion for leave against the Crown. To invoke Rule 2.1 while that stay remained in effect was not merely irregular—it amounted to an attempt to pursue a dispositive step during a period in which it was already known that no procedural steps were permitted.