Justice committee  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.

Justice committee  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.

Justice committee  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.

Justice committee  I think it's pretty early to tell. I think we have seen some increases. I wouldn't say it's fairly significant as of yet, but certainly that is another risk that's on the horizon for us as a service delivery organization.

Justice committee  Our largest source of refugee applicants is Nigeria, and second is China. The changes in the Middle East, and certainly the uncertainty that is present there, could potentially add again to the pressures that we're seeing. There's certainly a lot of risk for us as an organization that the demand for our services will continue to grow.

Justice committee  I think if you look at the funding that other legal aid plans receive, it's significantly less than what we receive. For example, none of the other provinces have community legal aid clinics. We have 76. We spend about $80 million on community clinics. None of the other provinces have similar services.

Justice committee  The funds that we were provided with were specifically targeted to increasing our financial eligibility. If we didn't spend the money on financial eligibility, then those funds had to be returned to the province. It didn't really help us with our ongoing operating pressures, and it does help to a certain extent with refugees, but not....

Justice committee  In addition to the funds we receive for legal and financial eligibility, a number of years ago the province committed $30 million over three years to address issues related specifically to family law. We did expand our mediation. We're trying to invest our services in areas in family law that take the cases out of the court system and speed things up so it doesn't put pressure on other aspects of the court system.

Justice committee  David, would you like to answer?

Justice committee  Yes. I'm weighing my answer. The federal government has made a commitment to increase criminal legal aid services. The thing is, it doesn't come anywhere close to a 50/50 split between the Province of Ontario and the federal government. I think in the past that was the target. If you look at how much money we're spending—$440 million, $55 million for criminal and another $10 million for refugees—you do the math, and it's not a 50/50 split.

Justice committee  Increasing?

Justice committee  Oh, yes. If you look at our stats, there is an overrepresentation of marginalized groups within the criminal justice system. How can we reduce that? We have an overrepresentation of aboriginal clients. The aboriginal population in Ontario is 5%; 15% of our clients self-identified as aboriginal.

Justice committee  One of the things it started to do is to look at issues related to Gladue. It looked at issues related to sentencing and what other influences and demands for services we could identify, such as issues related to bail. One of the challenges we have is that clients get into the system and then they accelerate and come back again and again.

Justice committee  I think one of the things it does is cause a churn in the system. It encourages, or really forces, people to go to trial when perhaps if there were not a mandatory minimum, they wouldn't need to do that. It causes delays in the system and compounds some of the other challenges we have in terms of administration of justice.

Justice committee  That's right.