Canadian Heritage committee  The statistics are from Statistics Canada, so whatever it collects, we use as data.

Canadian Heritage committee  I certainly support the idea, which is why we're calling for another national action plan against racism. The 2005 action plan came as a result of the Canadian government's promise to the World Conference Against Racism when it signed the declaration and program of action. Dr. Fry was very much part of that.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Dr. Fry and committee members. My name is Avvy Go. I'm the clinic director of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, formerly known as the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. We are a non-profit organization that provides free legal services to low-income members of the Chinese and southeast Asian communities in Ontario.

Justice committee  The Ontario system is considered one of the best for two reasons. One is the per capita investment in legal aid. The second is that it's a mixed model—it has duty counsel and it also has community legal clinics—and it covers a wide variety of areas of law. It's not just about criminal and family law, but it deals with a lot of the essential law that Mr.

Justice committee  The other day I was at a round table with the minister responsible for the poverty reduction strategy. I think even the discussion around how to define “poverty” is ongoing—whether you look at the low-income cut-off or a low-income measure. Different people have different opinions, but I think it's a certain measure of low income.

Justice committee  I think certainly I would highly question whether the spirit of section 15 is being met and whether the spirit of the rule of law, which is the foundational principle of our Constitution, is also being met. It's not just across Canada. Even within Ontario, where it's one of the best-funded legal aid programs, you see disparities.

Justice committee  I'm somewhere between the two positions. I see a difference between students, law students, articling students, and paralegals, because law students and articling students always work under the supervision of a lawyer. The lawyer is ultimately accountable for their work. I don't know about criminal law, but I think there are situations in other civil law areas where liberty is not at issue and where maybe students can play a bigger role.

Justice committee  In Ontario family law, for instance, there are cases where they will have contribution agreements. Usually if you have property, legal aid will make you pay at the end of the day. Those kinds of agreements do exist right now, but it still doesn't address the problem. I guess Professor Michael Trebilcock did a report, I think, in 2009, where he talked about how to expand legal aid to the middle class in order to get more buy-in for the legal aid program, because I think it speaks to some of the questions asked earlier.

Justice committee  I would just echo what Mr. Ferguson has said. It is important to have that conversation, whether it's in the context of funding or whether it's in the context of coming up with some kind of a national strategy to address this issue, which obviously affects all Canadians in different ways.

Justice committee  I don't have a number, but I think it should be set at a percentage of something. It's either a percentage of the funding that you spend on the criminal justice system or the correctional system, or a percentage of funding you set within the transfer payment, so that it goes up as your other expenses go up.

Justice committee  I'm not speaking as a bencher of the law society, but this is an issue that we have been talking about. I think it's why we changed the rules of professional conduct to allow the unbundling of services, for precisely that reason. However, at the end of the day the person will still need someone to represent him because of the complexity of the law.

Justice committee  I think money is an essential but not sufficient condition for all of these things to happen. Ontario is one of the best models in the world, second to the U.K., and we have a very mixed model wherein you see clinics' delivery of services, plus judicare, plus duty counsel. Many things are happening, as in the mixed model in which people are providing triaging services.

Justice committee  I'll start. It's that the funding just isn't adequate at all to meet the needs. The example of Ontario is that even if you live below the poverty line, you will still not get legal aid if you don't meet the very low financial eligibility requirements, and at the same time, the government is spending more and more money on the criminal justice side.

Justice committee  I would suggest that in terms of a legislative framework, or other frameworks, you look at requiring a race impact and gender impact analysis of the programs and the funding that is being spent on legal aid. In terms of the cascading effect, basically you will be better off going on social assistance in order to get legal aid.

Justice committee  As to the federal government's role, there are two ways of looking at it. On the one hand, a lot of the laws that pass at the federal level have a direct impact on legal aid. Although the administration of the criminal justice system is provincial, criminal law itself is a federal jurisdiction.