Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to begin by thanking you, as well as the members of this committee, for the invitation to present today on the most recent legal aid survey data in this country. I am accompanied by Ms. Josée Savoie, who is the chief of the Courts Program at the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics at Statistics Canada.
I will be presenting an overview of certain key indicators relating to revenues, expenditures, personnel and case load statistics associated with the delivery and administration of legal aid in Canada.
The legal aid survey is an aggregate survey conducted by Statistics Canada and financed by Justice Canada, Legal Aid Directorate. The survey does not collect information on individual cases, and data are collected and reported for pre-defined categories. This means that forms are distributed to the responsible authorities of the various legal aid programs in the country.
This survey, which has been conducted since 1983, is currently being redesigned. The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, which I represent today, consulted the partners and persons responsible for legal aid services in Canada on their information needs, and to redefine the concepts and survey definitions to align with new realities concerning current practices that affect legal aid plans in Canada.
Before looking at this graph, it is important to mention that services provided by legal aid plans may include legal representation, advice, referrals, and information services. Generally, all legal aid plans cover both criminal and civil cases, although the extent of coverage varies among the provinces and territories. That is the definition we are using for the sake of this presentation.
In 2014 and 2015, about 718,000 applications for legal aid were submitted to legal aid plans across the country. In that same year, criminal matters accounted for 42% of total applications received. Criminal matters include both adult criminal applications, which constitute the majority of cases, and youth criminal applications as well.
In 2014 and 2015, family matters, which consist of proceedings related to divorce, separation, support, child protection, and other matters of a family law nature, accounted for 23%. Other civil matters, which are civil proceedings such as landlord, tenant, or contract dispute applications, accounted for another 33%.
Less than 2% of applications were for provincial and territorial offences. Over the 10-year period, total legal aid applications declined slightly, that is, by 5%, but the total number of adult criminal applications increased by 5%. Youth criminal applications declined by 30%, and legal aid applications for family matters decreased by 8%. Applications for other civil matters declined by 11%.
Regarding approved legal aid applications, we are referring to full-service applications only. In 2014 and 2015, there were about 467,000 applications approved for legal aid services throughout the country. In that same year, criminal matters accounted for over one-half of all approved applications. Over the 10-year time period, the total approved criminal legal aid applications increased by 6%.
Similar to the trend in total applications, the number of applications approved for full services declined slightly over that same period. The decline was largely driven by a decline in applications approved for family matters and for other civil services.
Over the 10-year period, refused legal aid applications declined by 9%. In 2014 and 2015, 65% of applications were approved for full services. In 2014-15, again, a little over one-half of refused applications were refused due to financial eligibility. About one-quarter were refused due to coverage restrictions, lack of merit, non-compliance, abuse, or other reasons.
The next chart is about legal aid funding sources over time. Legal aid plans receive funding from federal, provincial, or territorial governments, as you know, as well as from client contributions, cost recoveries from legal settlements, and other sources. According to the survey, the federal government, through the Department of Justice legal aid program, reported providing a total of $112 million to the provinces and territories in 2014-15 for the delivery of criminal and civil legal aid, as was stated earlier by my colleague Mr. Piragoff.
Provincial and territorial governments directly fund both criminal and civil legal aid. In 2014-15, provincial and territorial governments reported contributing $666 million to legal aid plans across Canada. Legal aid plans in Canada reported receiving funding of $856 million in that same year. Government sources contributed the vast majority of this amount, which is 92% of the total funding that legal aid plans are receiving in a year. The remaining 8% of funding was received from client contributions, cost recoveries from legal settlements, and contributions from the legal aid profession and other sources. Over the 10-year period, as can be seen on the graph, total funding reported by legal aid plans increased by 41%.
The next slide provides a more detailed view of each of the federal, provincial, and territorial contributions over the time that provinces reported receiving to operate and to provide their legal aid services. The federal government contribution over the 10-year period, data for which stops in 2014-15, increased by $20 million to $112 million, representing an increase of 22% over the 10-year period. During that same period, the provincial and territorial contribution increased steadily from $430 million to $666 million, representing an increase of 55% over that 10-year period.
Let's now look at the trend of legal aid plan expenditures. As noted here, legal aid expenditures consist of direct costs for legal services such as legal representation, legal advice, and the provision of information for both criminal and civil cases. They also include central administrative costs and other expenditures.
In 2014-15 legal aid plans spent just over $850 million to provide legal aid services. Consistent with past results, most legal aid plans spent more on criminal matters than on civil matters. Over that 10-year period total legal aid plan expenditures increased by 38%, which is in line with the revenue trend over that same period.
In summary, we can say that over the last decade the number of legal aid applications for adult criminal matters increased by 5%, while those for other civil matters decreased by 11%. Also, the number of legal aid applications approved for full service declined 1% over the 10-year period.
In total, revenues reported by Canada's legal aid plan increased 41% over the last 10 years, while total expenditures by the plans have increased 38%.
The Canadian centre for justice statistics is currently undertaking a redesign of the survey, as was stated in the introduction to this presentation, for the purpose of responding to emerging needs for more complete and improved information on the delivery of legal aid services in Canada. A comprehensive consultation on the information needs and feasibility is currently under way to ensure the relevance and quality of the data collected by the survey.
The following are some needs that were communicated to us throughout the consultations, just to name a few: socio-demographic information of legal aid clientele, aboriginal identity of those making applications, more details on types of legal aid services provided to clients, online services requested and provided, information on immigration and refugee legal aid, and the ability to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of legal aid services delivery.
Based on our consultations so far, we have identified the areas where we think we can make enhancements to the survey content to collect information that speaks to some of these data needs. We're also looking at breaking down expenditures by the types of services provided, so that's collecting expenditures on full service and expenditures on duty counsel and summary services.
In terms of the personnel resources of the plans, we are looking at possibly collecting more information on the number of paralegals and law students employed, which would improve our knowledge as to the extent of the use of these resources for legal aid service delivery.
We anticipate being able to collect some socio-demographic information, including gender, as well as information on self-identified aboriginal people. These would be high-level counts only, for legal aid applications as a group. We're also planning on adding categories for child protection and immigration and refugee legal aid, as well as collecting information on different application methods, for example, online, by telephone, or in person.
That concludes my presentation. Thank you very much.