Justice committee  Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee again. Legal Aid Ontario, LAO, is Canada's largest legal aid plan, and a significant funder and provider of services in every level of criminal court in Ontario. We have a pressing interest in the federal government's

Justice committee  One of the things we've been doing with the community legal clinics, for example, is really looking at community legal needs. We have a number of legal aid clinics that focus on a particular community. We have a metro Chinese community. We have a South Asian clinic that looks at

Justice committee  We're obligated to provide services under the French Language Services Act of Ontario. We have, for example, a clinic in Vanier that's entirely francophone. We have staff who are francophones and provide services in French. Clients who phone for our services are able to receive s

Justice committee  I think there's a fairly significant amount of funding and that it really drives what legal aid plans across Canada can do. For example, we spend a significant amount of our resources on family; other jurisdictions don't. British Columbia does not provide the same level of serv

Justice committee  One of the things we asked clients is what they would do if legal aid services were not available to them. Many of them have no idea what they would do. We can provide you with the survey results. One of the things they do say is that they have to self-represent in the system. If

Justice committee  One of the ones that we referenced was expedited reviews. Do we need to have a hearing? There are certain countries where there clearly are issues related to human rights violations and where clients are at risk. Do we need to go through the same lengthy process? For us, the di

Justice committee  One of the issues is the long-term effects of having a criminal record and what that does to your ability to work and to get an education. We don't have the statistics to indicate the long-term impact of legal aid in that regard. I think there are lots of examples where keeping s

Justice committee  We have a number of performance measures. We table an annual report in the legislature that is required of us as an agency of the province. We submit a business plan to the attorney general every year, identifying what our plans are for the future and indicating what we think are

Justice committee  That's right.

Justice committee  It's 93%, or in that neighbourhood.

Justice committee  That's a tricky question, given that our political masters will be paying very close attention to what we're saying today. I think it does. For us, as a recipient of provincial funding, we really don't get into the middle of the debate about federal-provincial transfers and the

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. I

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-identifie

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 sy