It's a huge problem. I don't have the exact statistics, but I think in the court of appeal over 50% of family litigants are self-represented. It's a significant problem for the court. It causes huge delays, and there are hard costs associated with those delays for everybody involved—for the other side, for the court, for the judge, for all the court processes, and of course for the person who doesn't have counsel. Both parties often don't have counsel, but particularly if there's one party, it costs them in missed work hours.
The research that's been done on the cost of underfunding legal aid goes both from within the court system all the way out to missed work hours, to housing and social assistance costs, to meeting the needs of people who are now unemployed. It sounds maybe far-fetched, but in fact there is significant economic research that shows that these costs are very real.