Affidavi / Glossary

Glossary: Ontario court-document terms

26 terms · Plain definitions, not legal advice · Updated 13 September 2026

The words that come up when a record is built for an Ontario court, and what they mean in practice. Each entry is short on purpose; the guides carry the detail and the sources.

Affidavit

A written statement of facts sworn or affirmed before a commissioner of oaths or a notary. In Ontario civil proceedings it follows Form 4D under the Rules of Civil Procedure, and the documents it relies on are attached as lettered exhibits.

Exhibit

A document attached to an affidavit and identified by letter ("Exhibit A", "Exhibit B") and by the commissioner's stamp or cover page. In an electronic record, every reference to an exhibit in the body of the affidavit should hyperlink to the exhibit itself.

Exhibit stamp (exhibit cover)

The page or stamp that certifies an exhibit: "This is Exhibit A referred to in the affidavit of ... sworn before me on ...". A generated cover page serves the same purpose in an electronic record.

Motion record

The bound set of materials for a motion under rule 37.10: the notice of motion, the supporting affidavits and any other materials, each behind a numbered tab, with an index at the front. An application record under rule 38.09 is the equivalent for applications.

Tab

A numbered divider page placed before each document in a record. The index lists every document by its tab number, and the numbers must match; in an electronic record each index entry links to its tab.

Index (table of contents)

The first pages of a record, listing each document with its tab and page number. Case Center guidance expects the index entries to be hyperlinked to the documents they name.

Bookmark

An entry in a PDF's navigation panel that jumps to a page. Courts expect a bookmark for each document in a record and each exhibit in an affidavit, so the sidebar mirrors the record.

Hyperlink (internal link)

A clickable region in a PDF that jumps to another page of the same file — from an index row to its tab, or from "Exhibit C" in an affidavit to Exhibit C. A back button is a link from the exhibit's first page back to the paragraph that cited it.

Case Center

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice's online platform (formerly CaseLines) for sharing hearing documents. Documents are uploaded as PDFs, and the court's guidance sets naming conventions, a page cap per document and expectations for bookmarks and hyperlinks.

Practice direction

Written guidance issued by a court on how proceedings are to be conducted in practice — for civil matters in Ontario, the Consolidated Civil Provincial Practice Direction and the Case Center guidance.

Affidavit of Documents (Form 30A / 30B)

The sworn list of documents a party has or had in its possession, control or power that are relevant to the matters in issue, required by rule 30.03. Form 30A is for an individual, Form 30B for a corporation or partnership. Schedule A lists documents the party will produce, Schedule B the documents it objects to producing, Schedule C documents no longer in its possession.

Schedule A

The schedule of an Affidavit of Documents listing the documents that will be produced. In a productions brief, Schedule A serves as the index: each row is a numbered tab, and the row links to the document behind it.

Privilege

A legal ground for withholding a relevant document from production — most often solicitor-client privilege (communications with counsel for legal advice) or litigation privilege (documents created for the dominant purpose of litigation). Privileged documents are listed in Schedule B and are not produced.

Backsheet (Form 4C)

The last page of a court document in Ontario, carrying the court, the court file number, the title of the proceeding, the name of the document and the lawyer's contact information.

Style of cause

The heading of a court document that names the court, the court file number and the parties in their roles — plaintiff and defendant, or applicant and respondent.

Commissioner for taking affidavits

The person before whom an affidavit is sworn or affirmed. In Ontario, lawyers and paralegals are commissioners by virtue of their office; affidavits may also be commissioned remotely by video under the rules that allow it.

Text layer

The searchable text that sits behind the image of a PDF page. A scanned page has no text layer until it is OCR'd; without one, the page cannot be searched, and references inside it cannot be found or linked.

OCR (optical character recognition)

Software that reads the image of a scanned page and produces a text layer for it, so the page becomes searchable and linkable. Case Center expects uploaded documents to be text-searchable.

True redaction

Removing content from a PDF so that it no longer exists in the file — not covering it with a black box that can be copied out from underneath. A verified redaction is one where the finished file has been read back and the removed values confirmed absent.

Filing profile

In Affidavi, the set of rules for a particular court or portal — file naming, size and page caps, volume splitting — applied when a record is exported so that the finished file complies before it is filed.

Portal-safe file name

A file name that a court portal will accept: within its length limit, without characters it rejects, and following the naming convention the court's guidance describes.

Volume split

Dividing a long record into several PDFs so that each stays under a portal's page or size cap, with the index and numbering carried across volumes.

Limitation period

The time within which a claim must be started. Under Ontario's Limitations Act, 2002 the basic period is two years from the day the claim was discovered, subject to the ultimate fifteen-year limit and the Act's exceptions.

Construction lien deadlines

Under Ontario's Construction Act a lien must be preserved and then perfected within fixed periods running from the applicable trigger date, and the lien action set down for trial within a further period. The periods depend on when the contract was entered into; Affidavi's lien deadline calculator computes them conservatively from the dates you enter.

Factum

A party's written argument for a motion, application or appeal: the facts relied on, the issues and the law, with a schedule of authorities.

Notice of motion (Form 37A)

The document that starts a motion: the relief sought, the grounds, and the evidence to be relied on. It is Tab 1 of the motion record.

Sources: Rules of Civil Procedure, R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 194 · SCJ: How to Organize & Upload Documents · Limitations Act, 2002 · Construction Act

General information about Ontario procedure, not legal advice. Verify against the current Rules and the practice direction that applies to your matter.