Justice committee  Legal aid is always going to have limited resources. There always has been and always will be a limited amount of money that the state is prepared to spend on the poor. That's the root of the problem. With these partnering arrangements, we're trying to leverage the enormous reso

Justice committee  It has just occurred to me—I think slowly—that with regard to the intermediary partnerships I was talking about, one of the clinics partnered with an aboriginal organization. They didn't produce very many assessments and referrals, so we went out and asked them why. The people ma

Justice committee  Forgive me, while I caught the last part of your question, the first part didn't come through. Generally, no, but it depends on the area. In family law, women are more likely to seek help. In other areas, I can't remember the numbers specifically, but I'm going to say, no, there

Justice committee  This gets complicated because these problems very often do not occur in isolation. They occur in clusters, and they're interdependent. You find people with family law problems, but they're linked to debt problems, consumer problems, and a range of other problems, not only legal p

Justice committee  Could you say the last sentence again, please? It's for what kind of populations?

Justice committee  I'll ask Kasari to help me here. I can't think of any that specifically address aboriginal populations.

Justice committee  Yes. I think it's long been recognized that mediation is a much more humane way to deal with family disputes than is the court process. I'm not sure what to say except that I agree completely that mediation is a better approach. I'm not so sure that mediation is a cheaper approac

Justice committee  I think if family disputes or any other sorts of disputes can be tackled early in the process—I think Kasari made this point—then the issue is probably going to be less complex and easier to resolve. The longer a problem festers, if you will, the much more difficult it will be to

Justice committee  Yes, I think very much to the credit of the private bar, there are a number of examples of weekly or biweekly legal clinics that are held in church basements and so on, that do try to provide that kind of information. A good example of having something like that institutionaliz

Justice committee  Thank you. I want to thank the committee for inviting me. It's very much a privilege. I'm going to begin my remarks by highlighting the results of some research on the prevalence of legal problems experienced by the public. It's a body of research that has had considerable inf