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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2000

HALIFAX - The Canadian Bar Association (CBA) has launched a new initiative that will increase pressure on government leaders to improve the delivery of legal aid in Canada.

The Legal Aid Watch (LAW) involves a network of grassroots lawyers across the country who have volunteered to monitor the delivery of legal aid - to see how legal aid underfunding hurts real people. The lawyers participating in LAW will bring these examples, or "horror" stories, to the attention of the CBA which, in turn, will pass along the stories to the media, MPs and governments.

"The CBA has decided that it's time to ratchet up the pressure on governments to provide proper funding for legal aid," says CBA President-elect Daphne Dumont, Q.C., of Charlottetown. "We won't stop applying the pressure until the government agrees to take real, effective action and supply the legal aid system with the money it desperately needs."

The CBA has been warning governments for years that legal aid is dangerously underfunded - warnings that have gone largely unheeded. "You simply can't do what needs to be done for your client in the unrealistic number of hours that legal aid pays," says Brian Midwinter, of Brandon, Manitoba, Chair of the CBA's Legal Aid Liaison Committee.

"Lawyers are leading the fight to increase legal aid funding. We're the ones fighting for the solution," adds Brian Midwinter.

Miriam Grassby of Montreal argues that the responsibility for legal aid funding lies with the federal government. "The direct funding of legal aid is carried out by provincial governments, but many of them are underfunded themselves. We feel that funding legal aid is ultimately the responsibility of the federal government. A nation-wide solution is needed for a nation-wide problem."

A news conference on the Legal Aid Watch is being held on Monday, Aug. 21, 10:45 a.m. at the World Trade and Convention Centre, Mariner 3 Suite. The event is open to accredited journalists who have registered with the CBA Media Centre.

The Canadian Bar Association is dedicated to improvement in the law and the administration of justice. Some 36,000 lawyers, notaries, law teachers, and law students from across Canada are members.