I'd like to make this a little bit real. My daughter was a law student a year ago. She represented a person who was accused in a summary conviction matter. They were accused of switching a label on a bottle of hair shampoo, and they were accused of theft under.... My daughter, being a legal aid student in the clinic, was able to provide legal services to this person that would not otherwise have been available. If a law student cannot do that, if an articling student cannot do that, if a paralegal cannot do that, there is a real risk that people in those situations, who are not able to get legal aid and who are not able to afford a lawyer, will be rendered unrepresented in the criminal law system.
To take the point on immigration made in the previous panel—and this would be unlikely for these particular facts—if there were a seven-month instead of a six-month sentence imposed, that person would not be able to appeal to the immigration appeals division regarding a removal order. They would lose that right.
We have a system that, in the summary conviction area, has less serious and more serious offences. The risk here is taking away representation and increasing the consequences for that set of less important but nonetheless still important offences.
In Ontario we have a special concern as well. We have designed and implemented a system of paralegal representation. We have designed, based on the six-month maximum, education, training, and licensing conduct. We have created a system whereby licensed paralegals are able to provide these services, whether or not the licensing regime is based on the six-month limit. If we were to design a system for a two-year limit, in which everyone who was charged with an offence punishable by summary conviction had the risk of up to two years, we would have to revisit—or the provincial government, if it were given that authority, would have to revisit—the entire paralegal system in Ontario to be able to provide proper representation.
We consider it very important that, unless there is very good reason, people not be deprived of representation, that vulnerable people not be put in great risk, and that a well-established system that works not be disrupted for no apparently good reason.
We recommend essentially that the status quo be preserved by maintaining a set of offences that are punishable by up to six months and not more. We think that nothing you're trying to do to reduce delay is harmed by that. We think nothing that you're intending to do, from a public policy perspective, would be harmed by that. The status quo would permit good things that are now being done for people in the criminal justice system to continue.