Mr. Callaghan certainly hit many of the major points that unified family courts will help address, namely, issues related to self-represented litigants and access to justice. They are certainly not a total solution, but will only improve the position of self-represented litigants.
As pointed out by Mr. Callaghan, it will mean that for every litigant, whether they have a lawyer or not, the legal process will be more efficient and hence more accessible. The fact that there will be specialist judges will lead to faster resolution of cases and more emphasis on settlement of cases, with knowledgeable judges who can more quickly help people resolve their cases.
As he pointed out as well, a major part of having unified family courts is to have a range of services that can help resolve cases—in particular mediation, but also assessment services and parenting education services. These are more easily put into place if there's a unified family court.
For all those reasons, having unified family courts will help address the issue of self-represented litigants. However, by no means is it a total solution.
For example, one thing many of us are working on is to increase the use of what we call “limited scope services”. In situations in which some people can't afford the full service of a lawyer, they would be able to get some legal advice at a reasonable price on a per hour basis, including perhaps at the courts as well as in offices.
We need changes to the family law rules and forms in every province, but certainly in Ontario as well. There needs to be an increase in availability of public information and education for people who are self-represented.
This is a complex question that will require many different kinds of responses, but unified family courts are certainly a step in the right direction.