Justice committee  I don't work in Ontario, so I don't know the formula, but I do know that as a response to the Code and LeSage report, they did bring in higher rates for senior counsel. I believe it was $140 or $150 an hour, something like that. I can't say whether it's the gold standard. Unfortu

Justice committee  I see it as a rule of law issue. It's a fundamental principle of our democracy that we are all bound to obey the same laws, and we pass laws constantly that have complex offence provisions and penalty provisions. Yet we do not provide any resources realistically to the bulk of so

Justice committee  I don't think we can have a single benchmark for every area of the law. If somebody is about to lose their liberty, or their house, or their child, that may require a different threshold than some other kinds of problems. I just look at it that way. I think it has to be issue dri

Justice committee  We provide alcohol. Does that promote addictions? Are we going to go back to prohibition? I don't know. The sad reality is that some individuals deal with the problems they face as a result of their intersection with a difficult world by going to chemicals. We know that. It happe

Justice committee  Maybe. I just don't know if we've found them yet.

Justice committee  I'd be happy to talk to you. We have a different perspective. I appreciate that.

Justice committee  I'm afraid I'd have to agree with that. I honestly cannot.... Of course, you're always going to say that there was one individual who got legal aid who shouldn't have gotten it, because no system you put in place is going to be without its flaws. There's always going to be someb

Justice committee  Are you talking about safe injection sites?

Justice committee  That's an easy question.

Justice committee  At the end of the day, this is a philosophical question. It's a very difficult thing. I appreciate that different individuals have different beliefs on this issue. I happen to come at it from a different perspective; I happen to think that safe injection sites actually save lives

Justice committee  I agree wholeheartedly with what my colleague just said. The Law Society of British Columbia has struck a committee to study legal aid. We had a colloquium about a month ago, and one of the participants said that part of the issue with the funding of legal aid is a marketing prob

Justice committee  In British Columbia we have that; we have enhanced fees. The hourly rate is $120 an hour rather than the regular hourly rate for somebody with a 10-year call, which is about $91 an hour. If you look at what the cost of running an office is, however.... A good way to do the calc

Justice committee  I differ from my friend a little bit. I think the answer to many of the problems in the criminal justice system with delays and inefficient trials is actually a proper allocation of funds, so that senior counsel can now train junior counsel, so that those junior counsel become th

Justice committee  You're studying access to justice, and of course we're speaking about legal aid. One of the impacts on access to justice is delays in appointing judges. It's a huge issue. The consequence of it will be felt a year from now, two years from now. I know that in British Columbia th

Justice committee  In a way, the high hourly rates that some lawyers charge—and I agree with my colleague that if you go outside of the big cities, the median income for lawyers is surprisingly low.... A dedicated tax on legal fees, which is what British Columbia did—but when using the word “dedica