Thank you, Doug.
We'd like to talk first and foremost about the devastating impact the bill would have for the clients we work with at the SLASS clinics.
The clients we serve live in deep and persistent poverty. In addition to whatever presenting legal issue has brought them to us, they are also often dealing with other legal and non-legal problems, such as homelessness, food insecurity, low literacy, disability, unemployment, lack of immigration status and addiction and mental health issues.
In some of our clinics, large numbers of our clients do not speak either official language, and in others, a disproportionate number are indigenous. Many of them are living with the long-term effects of trauma. These are highly vulnerable clients who are not equipped to self-represent.
The clients we work with have no other options for free legal representation. We are legal assistance of last resort for them, literally their last hope. These are clients who need someone to walk with them on their journey through the criminal law system, someone to explain the charges to them, to help them understand their options and the consequences of these options on their immigration status, their employment prospects, their family law case and their housing. They need someone to insist that they are entitled to a fair process and to make sure their voice is heard.
Next we want to talk a little about the impact on our students. As detailed extensively in our written submission, all the SLASS clinics offer criminal law programs. As criminal law case workers, students will interview clients, negotiate with Crown attorneys, attend judicial pretrials, draft submissions, and if required, represent clients at trial. All of this work is done under the close supervision and mentorship of our supervising lawyers.
As Doug noted previously, education is the other half of our core mandate, and we take this responsibility very seriously. We provide extensive skills-based training on criminal law and criminal procedure, as well as supplemental education sessions on oral advocacy, drafting, case management and professional communication, legal ethics and working with vulnerable clients. In terms of the latter topic, our students are taught strategies for working effectively with low-income vulnerable clients, clients who have mental health issues and clients who have experienced domestic violence and who are living with trauma.
These programs are of enormous value to our students, not just in the moment but throughout their professional lives. Many of our criminal law students go on to pursue careers in criminal law as defence counsel, as Crown attorneys, in policy roles and as members of the judiciary. We are quite literally building the future criminal law bar.