Justice committee  I think your question, sir, has to do with comparing the relative ease of obtaining legal aid in Quebec and Ontario. I have had the privilege of serving on a federal committee with provincial representatives from Quebec, and I have visited the legal aid plan in Montreal and studi

Justice committee  You're right that the charter does contain a specific right to counsel, but the right to publicly funded counsel is really a matter of judge-made law. I think it's under the charter right to full answer and defence, but I haven't read the case in many years. It's a fairly old dec

Justice committee  If I could just respond for one second, as a citizen, one has an opinion, but I'm not here as a citizen. I'm here as a representative of Legal Aid Ontario, so I fully understand. As I said, I've been here all day, so I understand the nature of the debate about the bill. All I'm t

Justice committee  No, today I did not bring a specific number. No, I don't have a specific number today.

Justice committee  As I said at the outset, every change to the justice system is an increased pressure on all of the system, and that includes legal aid. Some of these changes we can estimate better than others. For example, we've done estimates on the likely cost of legal aid due to increasing th

Justice committee  Yes, for this particular category of offence.

Justice committee  I'm trying to stick to data that I'm aware of, rather than subjective impressions, but it is certainly our experience in Legal Aid that the criminal population is by and large quite poor. I don't have hard data for that.

Justice committee  The overall coverage rate of adults with certificates in the criminal justice system is more like 25%, in the sense that we issue, for example, 65,000 criminal certificates a year in Ontario, but there are between about 250,000 and 300,000 accused persons entering the criminal ju

Justice committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members. Thank you for inviting me once again. As I expressed to Madame Diotte, I am very grateful that you have come halfway, to the Toronto airport, as last time I had to go the whole way to Ottawa. Of course, we at LAO don't take a for

Justice committee  I'm happy to defer to Ms. Sampson.

Justice committee  No, we do not provide legal aid to people charged outside the country, period. Legal Aid Ontario restricts its services to residents of Ontario, and I believe all the other legal aid plans do the same as well.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  They have the ability to obtain a certificate. The duty counsel model is not appropriate for refugee cases. It doesn't work, so you have to use the certificate model or staff lawyers, and we have both in Ontario. We have a few staff lawyers, but mostly it's done through the certi

Justice committee  Absolutely.

Justice committee  Right, and in some cases they're not allowed to work.