It's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
My name is Kasari Govender. I'm the executive director of West Coast LEAF.
Our mandate is to use the law to create a more equal and just society for all people who experience gender-based discrimination. We use the law as a tool to do that.
I want to talk to you today about access to justice, and specifically about federal funding for legal aid. The question posed to us is “What steps can the federal government take to support Canadians to grow the economy in the face of a changing economic landscape?” We believe that funding for civil legal aid is essential to the economic security of Canadians.
West Coast LEAF has worked extensively in the area of access to justice for women, including through the research we've conducted, a multi-year project funded by Status of Women Canada in which we talked to advocates and service providers across the province and heard a lot about how to best meet the legal needs of women in the province. In that process, we also learned a lot about how inadequate legal aid impacts the lives of people and their communities.
To give you a little of context, the state of legal aid in B.C. is one of crisis. It was slashed in 2002. It was cut across the board by 40%. Family law legal aid services were cut by 60%, and poverty law services were eliminated entirely.
There is a very large gap right now between those who can afford to hire a lawyer in a family law matter and those who need it. For example, a person working full time on minimum wage would not qualify for legal aid, yet clearly would not be able to pay a lawyer's fee.
What are the costs of underfunding legal aid? The first, of course, is a disproportionate impact on women. Women are less likely to be able to afford counsel. They're more likely to have primary care for their children and more likely to be victims of spousal violence, so they often have more at stake in family law proceedings. Protracted proceedings that do not have counsel to seek resolution often lead to protracted violence.
The human cost is also felt on children if both sides aren't properly represented, especially in provinces without a children's lawyer in family cases, like B.C. There is insufficient evidence of the child's best interest before the court, and their best interest may not be met.
Children's lives and safety are also at stake when family violence is involved, of course, so unresolved legal problems that lead to escalated tension and violence in the home also affect the well-being of children.
Indigenous people, migrants and people living in poverty are also deeply impacted by the underfunding of legal aid.
The costs are not just those costs on the person side of things: There is also a cost to the public purse. We had a public commission on legal aid in 2011, led by Len Doust. In that context Commissioner Doust said “...short-changing legal aid is a false economy since the costs of unresolved problems are shifted to other government departments in terms of more spending on social and health services, the cost of caring for children in state custody, and so on.”
There are significant extra costs for justice. The Canadian Bar Association has estimated—conservatively, they say—that because of the inefficiencies caused by unrepresented people, if legal aid were properly funded in family and criminal cases, provincial court would see savings of at least $50 million per year. Savings by providing legal aid in poverty law cases are estimated at another $50 million. That's just provincial courts. That's just in those areas. That's just in B.C.
There are significant labour market costs of underfunding legal aid as well. A study in Texas from the Perryman Group found that for every dollar spent on legal aid, there were over seven dollars in benefits in labour market costs, mostly to the private sector. As well, the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice recently estimated that job loss caused by civil and family justice problems account for an estimated $450 million in annual spending on EI.
Health care, of course, is also impacted. Again, the forum estimated that on an annual basis, the additional cost to the health care system as a direct consequence of people experiencing everyday legal problems is estimated at over $100 million.
We know there are also significant costs to the health care system in dealing with the medical problems flowing from violence against women in both the psychological and the physical effects of that violence.
Finally, the forum estimates that public spending on social assistance resulting from everyday legal problems costs an additional $248 million annually. This problem has come to international attention. The CEDAW committee, which is the international committee looking at equality for women, has brought this issue to the attention of the federal government. They called on the federal government to earmark funds in the Canadian social transfer for civil legal aid, to ensure that women have access to justice in all jurisdictions.
The justice committee report—another parliamentary committee report in 2017 on legal aid—recommended that the federal government target increased provincial transfer funds to civil legal aid. I would ask that you make a similar commitment in this committee.
Thank you.