Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members.
Speaking on behalf of Legal Aid Ontario, I'd like to advise you that we provide legal services to over one million low-income Ontarians per year, through our three programs—the duty counsel program, the clinic services, and the legal aid certificate system—when these clients have their safety, their homes, their families, their incomes, or their freedom in jeopardy.
The biggest program in terms of numbers of people served is the duty counsel program. We schedule lawyers in most of the provincial courts every day, where they provide triage services to unrepresented parties who are appearing in court that day. Criminal duty counsel assist with pleas of guilty, speak to sentence, conduct many of the bail hearings, and assist with setting dates for trial and other adjournments. Family court duty counsel assist with early appearances, simple document preparation, and consent orders, and they provide representation in simple motions. The duty counsel program assisted 760,000 Ontarians in 2005-06.
The community legal clinic program provides essentially poverty law services, including assistance with matters concerning housing and income security. The clinics also engage in public legal education initiatives, community development, and law reform work. My colleague Mr. Guitard will address the clinic system in more detail in a few moments.
The part of the legal aid program in Ontario that receives the most attention is the certificate system, through which services are provided to about 110,000 Ontarians every year, in partnership with the private bar. Legal Aid Ontario provides these clients with a certificate that they can then take to the private lawyer of their choice. LAO then reimburses the lawyer's fees in the amount established by the tariff.
Certificates are issued in criminal matters where there is a likelihood that the accused will face time in jail; in family law matters involving custody, access, and support, primarily to women, many of whom have experienced domestic violence; and also to parents involved in child protection issues with the Children's Aid Society. Certificates are also issued in refugee matters and in certain other specified immigration cases. Occasionally we issue certificates for hearings before the National Parole Board; the Ontario Review Board, which deals with mental health issues under the Criminal Code; and the Consent and Capacity Board.
I'd like to turn to the financial eligibility criteria. Legal Aid Ontario serves really only the poorest of the poor. The financial criteria have not been increased for many years. In fact, they were dramatically reduced by 22% in 1995, to coincide with government cuts to welfare payments in Ontario that were introduced at that time. The rates have not been increased since that time. The result is that while the cost of living increases, more and more low-income people are ineligible for legal aid assistance.
In the way the Ontario financial eligibility criteria work, regardless of an applicant's actual cost for rent, transportation, and other living expenses, LAO has established maximum allowable limits for these costs. Every dollar of income above these allowable amounts is considered money that applicants can use to pay for a lawyer. These allowances are now unrealistically low and rarely cover the actual cost of the applicant's living expenses.
Most of LAO's clients are on some form of social assistance. The working poor, by and large, are not eligible to receive legal aid in Ontario. For example, a family of four earning $29,000 per year likely would not qualify for legal aid in Ontario. For an individual, the cut-off is about $18,000.
Our current financial situation is difficult and deteriorating. While LAO has received some project-specific funding in the last few years, we have not received an increase in our base funding since 1999.
In the intervening years, we have been absorbing over $44 million in inflationary and salary costs and increasing service demands in the certificate and duty counsel systems. We have depleted all of our reserves and are now in a structural deficit position of $10 million to $15 million per year. This deficit will continue to grow if additional base funding is not received. Hard choices will have to be made very soon.
All indications are that demand for legal aid services will increase, and there are good reasons for that. All legal aid plans in the country are under pressure caused by demographics, population growth, changes in the age of population, social trends, and increasing numbers of criminal charges.
Federal law and policy have a significant impact on legal aid demand. Changes in federal law and policy that are ongoing include more criminal charges being laid, and that results in an increasing demand for legal aid certificates. For every nine criminal charges laid, one accused person will require a legal aid certificate. Recent mass prosecutions of alleged gang members are creating an enormous pressure on our certificate system. Cases in these mass prosecutions can cost as much as $90,000 for each accused, compared to an average cost of $1,500 for a normal criminal legal aid case.
Recent legislation eliminating conditional sentences for certain criminal offences relate to offences that make up 80% of the criminal services provided by certificates. A possible effect of this change in the law is that more people who are facing potentially harsher sentences will plead not guilty, so more time will be tied up in prosecuting them, and legal aid will be compelled to expend more funds in defending them.
Recent changes in minimum penalties for offences involving firearms will also likely result in more people in jail, and thereby increase demand by jail inmates for legal aid services.
These changes in criminal law and the resulting demand for criminal certificates mean there are fewer and fewer resources for other areas of law, in particular for family law clients. Most family law clients are women, many of whom are single mothers.
LAO estimates that over the next three years, the cost of these new federal initiatives to the legal aid plan will be approximately $7.5 million.
I want to share with you that a large portion of the legal services that LAO provides involves areas of law that fall under federal responsibility. Criminal law, of course, is obviously a federal responsibility, but you may not all be aware that immediately above criminal law, in section 91 of the Constitution Act, is the federal power over marriage and divorce. Divorce law is therefore also a federal responsibility, and it significantly drives the cost and nature of services that are required by married family law litigants. Recent initiatives that have had significant effect on legal aid costs in this area include the child support guidelines, which are mandatory, and more recently the spousal support guidelines. I would also like to make you aware that 44% of all clinic work deals with areas of federal responsibility or interest, such as employment insurance, the Canada Pension Plan, and housing, and almost 70% of the national applications for refugee status are processed in Ontario.
In closing, what I would like to tell you is that at legal aid, we think Canadians believe the justice system must be fair. We believe that Canadians support the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it has led to a court policy that there should be no conviction without representation. We believe that we must all see the justice system as an integrated whole--that if we are to put increasing resources into police and prosecution services, we must also, to be fair, fund the other side of the equation, and make sure that the defence is adequately funded to carry out its constitutional responsibilities.
Thank you.
