FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 3, 1998

BC Liberal Party Convention
Passed on May 3, 1998
WHEREAS legal aid is essential for ensuring that poor and disadvantaged persons in British Columbia have access to legal services; and

WHEREAS the Government of British Columbia collects a seven per cent tax on all legal services to help offset the cost of general revenue contributions to legal aid, and this tax revenue is estimated at $81.4 million for 1997/98; and

WHEREAS the federal government provides transfer payments to British Columbia of at least $25 million for legal aid, which is to be matched by provincial government general revenues; and

WHEREAS the Government of British Columbia has frozen legal aid funding, is failing to transfer the designated tax funds and federal funds to the Legal Services Society, providers of legal aid, leading to severe budget shortfall;

WHEREAS lawyers in the communities of Prince George, Prince Rupert, Kelowna, Abbotsford have withdrawn legal aid services in protest of government underfunding of legal services for the poor and disadvantaged men and women of BC; and lawyers in other communities throughout the province are preparing to join this protest; and

WHEREAS the legal aid system has reached a crisis because the Legal Services Society can no longer meet its mandate to provide legal services to the poor, and is not receiving government recognition of the urgency of this situation:

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the BC Liberal Party urgently call on the provincial government to immediately act to fulfil its commitment to legal aid by allocating to the Legal Services Society the full amount already being collected through the Social Services Tax and the transfer payments provided by the federal government.