Of course defence lawyers deliberately delay proceedings.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive.  Delay is defence counsels' strongest ally.  Witnesses move away, die, can't be located, change their mind about testifying or otherwise become unavailable.  Those who remain are subject to the same phenomenon as all of us:  with the passage of time memories fade, become less precise, less certain and therefore more vulnerable on cross-examination.

That said, is deliberate delay actually an improper defence tactic?  After all, it merely plays on an evidentiary characteristic of our adversarial trial system:  the reliability or vulnerability of witnesses.

What the SCC seems to be saying here, in effect, is that some amount of deliberate delay is permissible, that trial judges have the ability to control it through their interlocutory orders, and that if  counsel still refuse to rein it in, then the trial judge can penalize them personally with an award of costs.  What's the problem?