CBA’s Legal Aid Policy
June 2005
For people with little money, publicly funded legal representation through legal aid plans allows them to rely upon legal protections and guarantees that are intended for all. Without legal aid, access to justice is a hollow idea - many individuals simply cannot take advantage of these legal entitlements and protections. In spite of the CBA's resources and membership, our lobbying for improved legal aid services has not brought about significant improvements over the past decade; things are getting worse.
Provinces are cutting legal aid services, narrowing the types of cases they cover and raising the eligibility criteria, making it harder to qualify for legal aid services. The federal government assumes no responsibility for any minimum coverage across the country, with the primary exception of serious criminal matters. Even when critical interests are at stake, decisions such as those involving the risk of homelessness, loss of income security, loss of children to a former partner, people often have no legal assistance and no government is accountable.
The CBA believes that Constitutional guarantees could be more broadly interpreted so that critical legal interests must be protected by publicly funded legal services, but this legal development will require litigation. As the voice of the legal profession, and a strong advocate for justice in Canada, the CBA is the most appropriate, and perhaps the only organization that can realistically take on this challenge to defend access to justice.
CBA’s Legal Aid Milestones
June 2005
As an essential prerequisite for meaningful access to justice, improved legal aid funding is a top priority of the CBA. This overview details CBA efforts and accomplishments to promote access to justice.
- 1985 – Founded Legal Aid Liaison Committee
- 1998 – Intervened at Supreme Court of Canada in 1998 in J(G) v. New Brunswick
- 2002 – Created a Test Case Litigation Sub-Committee with mandate to develop optimal test case litigation
- strategy
- 2003-2004 – Finalized Case strategy
- 2004-2005 – Prepared for test case litigation
- 2005 – Retained Counsel in February
- 2005 – Filed Statement of Claim (June)
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Ongoing Initiatives
Lobbying governments to improve access to justice is ongoing – for example, legal aid has topped the agenda at each meeting between the federal Minister of Justice and CBA National President for the past decade.
Public education and political pressure, for example, through the Legal Aid Watch (LAW), highlighting stories of people falling through the cracks in access to justice.
Resolutions of CBA National Council build a broad policy base to found the Association’s activities in support of legal aid. |
CONTACT: Hannah Bernstein, Canadian Bar Association, Tel: (613) 237-2925, ext. 146; E-mail: hannahb@cba.org.
