TORONTO - Ontario's courts have seen an encouraging drop in processing times three years into a program targeting waste even though it has yet to meet its final targets.

"It's a huge turnaround for the system, and this was an initiative that did not involve using extra resources," Attorney General Chris Bentley said in an interview.

"Now that we stopped the ocean liner going in one direction ... we'll see an accelerating rate of progress."

The program, called Justice on Target, was set up in 2008 to cut down the provincial average of the number of days and court appearances for criminal cases by 30 per cent by 2012.

As of 2010, appearances in Kirkland Lake were down almost 45 per cent, in Kingston 18 per cent, in Brampton nearly 17 per cent and in North York 15 per cent.

London saw a reduction of 10 per cent, while Newmarket was down a more modest four per cent.

The number of appearances in Ottawa courts rose by more than one per cent, however, and there was a 15 per cent jump in Espanola.

Overall, 325,000 criminal court appearances were eliminated across the province.

When it came to the number of days a case took, Timmins led the decreases with 32 per cent, followed by Kirkland Lake and Kenora at 25 per cent, and Woodstock at 23 per cent.

Old City Hall in Toronto and Milton were both up around four per cent.

While Bentley admits not all courts have met his targets, he said the aim was really to find a way to shake up the system.

"It's a culture change that we're talking about here," said Bentley.

"To get the overall direction going in the right way for the first time after 18 years -- we're pretty pleased."

The Ontario Bar Association, which represents 18,000 lawyers, including criminal defence lawyers and Crowns, said the program had led to some progress, but it wasn't the kind of initiative that would fix the justice system as a whole.

"Justice on Target has reduced the number of appearances in criminal cases, but so far they have not seen a significant reduction in the number of trials," said association president Lee Akazaki.

"One part of the puzzle that we're still hoping to get support for politically is a unified family court. There's an area where I think there could be significant efficiencies."

Progressive Conservative justice critic Ted Chudleigh said it was difficult to measure the program's success because it's almost impossible to get statistical results that don't come out of the system.

That makes the comparisons hard to make, and it also creates uncertainty around what exactly is being done to speed up the process.

"I still ask at what cost, and it pains me to say that it's speculation because those stats aren't available," said Chudleigh.

"How many plea bargains? How big an increase? What kinds of plea bargains were made that got people with serious crimes off?"

The Tories are proposing to extend court hours to get cases through faster if they win the Oct. 6 election. It's an approach Chudleigh said would prove more successful than simply hoping lawyers will want to put a rush on them.

Bentley dismissed any concerns about cases being dumped or mishandled because of the initiative, saying that was simply not true.

"This is not about cutting corners, it's not about making any decision you wouldn't have otherwise made," he said.

"It is about finding ways to make that decision sooner, faster."