Evidence of meeting #42 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was family.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
I'm going to call this meeting to order. It is a great pleasure to convene this meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
It is also a great pleasure today to welcome individuals who are replacing some permanent members of the committee, including Sylvie Boucher.
Welcome, Mrs. Boucher.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you. I am pleased to be here today.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Excellent.
We also have Jamie Schmale. He is a frequent visitor to this committee and always gives excellent comments when he's here.
Welcome, Mr. Schmale.
February 2nd, 2017 / 3:35 p.m.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
You're too kind, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
We're also welcoming Darshan Singh Kang. He is here for the first time.
Welcome, Mr. Kang. It's a pleasure to have you.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Today we are welcoming witnesses from Legal Aid Ontario—
Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Mr. Nicholson.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
You're right. I was forgetting. I thought he was here at our last meeting, or I would have said something. But he wasn't. So I'd like to welcome Mr. Marco Mendicino, our new Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.
3:35 p.m.
Voices
Hear, hear!
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for welcoming me.
Thank you very much to my honourable colleague for mentioning it. I appreciate it. It's nice to see you, sir.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Of course, I don't want to introduce Marco without again acknowledging the wonderful contribution of Bill Blair, the other Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.
3:35 p.m.
Voices
Hear, hear!
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Thank you.
I appreciate that my silence is always appreciated.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Now that I've done exactly what a typical politician does and incent praise everywhere—
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Exactly.
I'm going to stop giving effusive praise to everybody and now introduce our witnesses for today.
We are very pleased to have, from Legal Aid Ontario, two Daves. We have David Field, the president and chief executive officer. Welcome, Mr. Field. We also have David McKillop, the vice-president. Welcome, Mr. McKillop.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
As we had discussed, we're going to start with your statement.
By the way, just so you're aware, the brief arrived on Monday, and so the committee was able to have only certain portions of it translated. The whole brief will eventually be translated and given to the committee.
The floor is yours, gentlemen.
3:35 p.m.
David Field President and Chief Executive Officer, Legal Aid Ontario
Thank you very much for inviting us to appear before you today to talk about the very important issue of access to legal aid. I would like to address not only the challenges, but also the opportunities that exist in this area.
Legal Aid Ontario, or LAO, is Canada's largest legal aid plan. It provides services to over 4,000 low-income people in the province of Ontario every day through a mixed-model system that includes private bar, staff, telephone-based, and online services. LAO has a budget of approximately $450 million and is also responsible for funding and oversight of 76 independent legal aid clinics across the province.
In Ontario we have been fortunate to be able to expand eligibility thanks to a generous investment by the provincial government. The financial eligibility thresholds had not been adjusted for two decades in Ontario when an independent study commissioned by LAO established that one million fewer low-income Ontarians were eligible for a legal aid certificate in 2011 than had been eligible in 1996. The gap population of low-income Ontarians was found to be more likely made up of families, children, the working poor, indigenous people, and members of visible minority groups.
With this recent increase in provincial funding, LAO has been able to implement three consecutive 6% increases to financial eligibility since 2014 as part of a long-term plan to raise eligibility thresholds to the 2011 low-income measure over eight to ten years. We have also been able to expand the range of services that are eligible for legal aid coverage. We think this is extremely important and we support the idea of establishing national benchmarks for the provision of legal aid services in the future.
We also think there is more that can be done to expand access to legal aid and access to justice. For example, Legal Aid Ontario has experience in developing and implementing vulnerable client strategies that improve and prioritize services for vulnerable and marginalized groups. We have developed aboriginal justice and mental health strategies and we will soon be introducing a domestic violence strategy. A racialized community strategy is also in development.
Our focus is on groups that are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice, child protection, and correctional systems and on groups that face particular challenges and barriers due to marginalization, or in the case of victims of violence, fear for their safety. We believe that the federal government should continue to encourage legal aid services that expand access to justice for vulnerable and marginalized groups.
The use of technology can also increase effectiveness and efficiency, and it can also expand access to legal aid services. Legal Aid Ontario has used technology in a variety of ways, from providing telephone summary legal advice, to introducing an electronic worksheet that allows all services provided to a client by duty counsel to be captured in a single record, meaning that the client has to tell their story only once. To broaden and improve access, reduce barriers, and simplify the client's experience, all of these things are important and are a useful use of technology. In the future, LAO anticipates moving to expanded chat and electronic services.
The federal government's support for more effective use of technology by legal aid plans would be a positive contribution that could help eliminate duplication of work and support more consistency and uniformity in the ability of plans across the country to use technology.
Another opportunity of federal government support lies in the areas of data collection and outcomes reporting. Legal aid plans across Canada are just starting to develop capacity in this area. Because LAO has a aboriginal self-identification question, we now know that 15% of legal aid certificates in Ontario are issued to clients who self identify as aboriginal. Knowing more information about our clients enables us to improve our services.
LAO is like other legal aid plans in that criminal law services make up its largest single area of service delivery by area of law. The financial demand that criminal law services places on legal aid plans leaves fewer resources available for providing services in other areas of client need such as family law. We think that the federal government can be of assistance in reducing demand for criminal legal aid services and the disproportionate impact and involvement in the criminal justice system has on vulnerable and marginalized groups by continuing to focus on initiatives and reforms aimed at reducing criminal justice system delay and addressing the overrepresentation of indigenous Canadians and the criminalization of persons with mental illnesses.
Specifically, LAO would like to recommend that the federal government continue to pursue sentencing reforms to reverse the legislative trend over the last decade. There is an opportunity to revisit mandatory minimum sentences, to increase the availability of conditional sentences, and to promote alternatives to incarceration for less serious offences and less serious offenders.
Problems with the bail and remand system have been well publicized of late. In Ontario, the remand population in provincial institutions is larger than the population of persons serving a sentence.
LAO has developed a bail strategy and is playing a key role in the province's new bail initiatives. We would like to see the federal government develop a new legislative framework for bail and remand.
It is worth noting that the introduction in 2003 of a new legislative framework, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, to address the over-criminalization of young people, provided and proved to be very successful in reducing youth incarceration.
Refugee claimants fleeing persecution and torture and other cruel treatment are among the most vulnerable people in Canada. World events, including the recent developments, are changing the landscape and narrowing the options for these vulnerable people. Only this week the federal government has reaffirmed Canada's commitment to welcome refugees.
In the first two quarters of this fiscal year, LAO experienced a 45% increase in refugee applications for legal services compared to last year. That number is only expected to grow. LAO has been successful in obtaining additional in-year funding from the federal government to assist with this year's pressures, and is grateful for this assistance, but we have serious concerns about the future. We ask that the federal government increase its contribution to refugee services and ensure equal and adequate access to justice as the demands for refugee legal aid services continue to grow. We believe there must be a mechanism for adjusting the federal contribution to respond to fluctuations and increasing demand.
LAO also sees opportunities for the federal government to contribute by supporting greater collaboration among all refugee system partners by supporting the addition of countries to the Immigration and Refugee Board's expedited country list—as claims that proceed by being expedited are less costly for legal aid—and by supporting the regularization of the status of over 3,000 legacy refugee claimants who have endured long delays in having their claims addressed.
Finally, the problem in accessing the family justice system is well known. Improving and expanding access to legal aid family law services has been an area of focus for Legal Aid Ontario. We offer a number of new services such as mediation and information and advice services that emphasize early intervention and a greater focus on resolution. We would like to recommend the federal funding assistance for family law be specifically targeted to expand access to family law services and reduce the number of self-represented litigants in the family justice system, with an emphasis on supporting front-end early intervention services.
Again, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and to provide you with these ideas for ways in which the federal government can increase access to legal aid and access to justice.
I welcome any questions you may have.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you very much, Mr. Field.
We'll now go to questions, and we'll start with Mr. Nicholson.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
Rob Nicholson Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your presentation here today.
On the last issue you mentioned having direct financing or contributions from the federal government with respect to family law services. Is this something that would have the support of the Province of Ontario?
3:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Legal Aid Ontario
I think that's a complicated question.
There's a lot of debate between the federal and provincial governments on whether the federal government contributes to family law, because it's mixed in with a broader transfer payment.
3:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Legal Aid Ontario
I think this is something we have to consider discussing with the province. We certainly feel that it would be helpful if there were some way we could allocate family resources or investment, but the province may have a different point of view than my own on this issue.
