I would definitely like to see the citizens have the ability to approach a human rights commission and for that commission to have actual power. There are provincial ombudsmen in most of the provinces, but I can only speak for Alberta in this case. I know the ombudsman there does not have the power to compel a solution, which then means that people have to go to the human rights act and Court of Queen's Bench. It costs $200 to file in the Court of Queen's Bench. There is no way we can provide that or have people to do it.
In terms of access to legal pursuit of one's rights, whether that be for private insurance, landlord and tenant issues, or marital issues, there are terrible problems accessing help.
I am simply a disabled woman. I have a complex mental illness, a brain injury, and as you know, I am physically disabled. I am certainly not a lawyer. I am a nurse by background, before I was injured.
One gentleman was a disabled pharmacist. He had access to a private plan that allowed him an income of $5,000 a month. Without that he would be homeless and destitute. The only way we could help him was to actually act as his attorney and go to court and file the documents ourselves. He had a lawyer at one point. He spent $30,000 on this lawyer, who did not, in eight and a half years, file a single motion on his behalf. I had to argue his case and file his documents.
It was a tremendous stress. I was telling them they had to get help, that I didn't know what to do and it was possible that I could lose them everything. They told me they had already paid a lawyer $30,000 over those eight years and they still could have lost and ended up with nothing. Happily in that situation they were finally able to achieve a settlement.
This is a tremendous problem, and that's the watershed of what goes on. People direct us to student resources such as Pro Bono Students Canada, for example, or local legal guidance clinics, who tell us that they can direct us this way or that way, but they can't represent us in court and can't do our documents. I looked at them and told them that they couldn't help me, because I could already write my own affidavits. But I had to learn that by the rules of court, and it was very strenuous and very stressful.