The circumstances of your trial and the amount of work that is needed to collect evidence and prepare a case can greatly impact the cost of your legal defence. The average cost for a single hour of a lawyer’s time in Canada is $75. You might be able to access pro-bono representation from some lawyers, but this is not common for criminal cases when you are the accused.
Make sure that you discuss the cost of your defence with your sexual assault lawyer in advance. If you are not able to pay for your defence upfront, there might be options available for you to access public defence support or to pay using a payment plan of some kind.