Legal aid, MDPs, resolution top Mid-Winter 2000 agenda

More than 200 CBA members and guests braved the vagaries of Canadian winter to attend the CBA Mid-Winter Meeting of Council in Brandon, Manitoba, Feb. 18-20. On the agenda were 14 resolutions, updates on CBA major initiatives on MDPs and legal aid as well as addresses by the Chief Justice of Canada and Manitoba's Minister of Justice.

The CBA's legal aid initiative is moving ahead on several fronts. Council passed a resolution that urges the enactment of federal legislation to establish access to legal representation as an essential service to be available uniformly across the country, to allocate and protect funding for legal aid and to separate civil legal aid funding from the CSHT. CBA President Eugene Meehan, Q.C. is taking every opportunity to discuss the crisis over inadequate funding for legal aid with government officials and the media during his visits to Branches. An online interactive survey on the Internet has provided useful data which is currently being analyzed and a research paper has been commissioned.

The CBA is the process of preparing a legal aid communications kit. The kit will contain speaking notes, model questions and answers and legal aid fact sheets. The kits will make it easier for bar leaders across the country to deliver a consistent, powerful message about legal aid. The Board also endorsed a new CBA initiative for keeping up the pressure to improve legal aid. The Legal Aid Watch (LAW) will be an e-mail network of legal aid lawyers who will inform the National Office of incidents where deficiencies in legal aid bring serious hardships. Each month, one story will form the basis of an open letter to politicians and the media, to apply political pressure and to raise public awareness of the issues.

Fourteen resolutions were on the Council agenda. With the introduction of a "consent" list, six non-controversial resolutions were dealt with as a block. "This procedure, along with the passage of a resolution limiting each speaker to five minutes, will help speed up Council's deliberations in the future," commented Vincent Morier, chair of the Resolutions Committee.

Forty-seven recommendations on racial equality encompassing law schools, the practice of law, courts, Aboriginal peoples, and access to justice, were passed completing an important chapter for CBA. "I am overwhelmingly proud of the CBA today," said Neena Gupta, of Toronto, joining in a round of applause for co-chairs Joanne St. Lewis, of Ottawa and Ben Trevino, of Vancouver.

The CBA's position on multi-disciplinary practices (MDPs) continues to evolve. Reporting to Council, Simon Potter (acclaimed Incoming Second Vice-President) said the committee is resolved to develop a "made in Canada solution for Canadian lawyers. We have received a great deal of feedback to this point, but we are still looking for more. We want the resolution we bring to the Halifax Annual Meeting to reflect the view of our members."

Unable to attend in person, Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin addressed Council by videotape. Stressing the close working relationship with the CBA, Chief Justice McLachlin said, "We are celebrating our 125th anniversary this year and we are especially grateful to the CBA for its ongoing cooperation and collaboration in marking this special event."

"The CBA has assumed a key role in our celebration by assisting us in producing a collection of scholarly papers dealing with the Court's work in numerous areas of the law that will be published later this year in special editions of the Canadian Bar Review."

Also on videotape, the CBA's Mr. Justice David Arnot of Saskatoon and Mr. Justice François Rolland, of Montreal, both members of the CBA's Canadian Judges Forum, screened Judicial Independence: What It Means to You to Council. "The video explains the principles of judicial independence and is intended for upper-level high-school students and service clubs, " explained Mr. Justice Arnot. There is a French video and English video, each of which is approximately 20 minutes in duration. "The video will be rolled out to the general public at events during Law Week," said Mr. Justice Rolland.

On the lighter side
Dubbed "a dry cold", the weather in Brandon cooperated delivering up crystal clear blue skies and bright sunshine for the duration. Not quite as cooperative were the local cows during a popular outing to a "calving experience". With 15-20 cows ready to go, none delivered, disappointing the eight lucky people who participated in the visit to a local farm organized by Mid-Winter Chair Joelle Aylward. But the visitors did see a 4,000-acre family farm with 150 head of cattle, granaries, steeds, bulls, and four sets of twin calves. "We actually had the chance to play with a two-day-old calf," said Joelle Aylward.

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