And further to that Rob, often times a guilty plea involves a statement by the accused of how the crime was commited, and if it does not match the facts of the case, judges have been known to not allow the plea. Also, entering a plea of guilt because of a lack of financial standing to properly defend a case is not permitted.
For the OP.
For the first appearance, and by this, I mean that Bail has been established and granted/revoked, this really is a formality. In some cases, a plea may be entered, but more often than not, the accused and his/her council will be seeking specifics regarding the case and disclosure items (testimony, video, witness statements etc etc) so the defendant can properly guage the case against them. These requests will be made to the crown and the court if the crown is not willing to provide them. A date will be set usually 3 or 4 weeks, but sometimes longer, to address the disclosure and to set a date to enter a plea at that time. This may occur 4 or 5 times, depending on the strength of the crown's case, the evidence, where it is coming from, how diligent the police dept is, etc. In a lot of cases, the police are very fast to lay charges, very fast to provide initial statement of "facts" but very very slow to provide proper disclosure to the court system. So, this can take some time, especially if a key peice of evidence is missing or not present in the disclosure.
Once a date has been set to enter a plea, that day comes and goes, a plea is entered, and if necessary, a sentencing date is set. Bail may or may not be continued if Guilty is entered.
Its pretty straight forward, with a lot of variables, and a LOT of things that slow it down. Unfortunately, it is the prosecutions side, and its witnesses (police, court clerks, etc) that slow down the system quite a bit. Often times people think its the criminals trying to stave off conviction, but its the other way around.
