Recent Government of Canada Publications from the Weekly Acquisitions List

The Government of Canada's Weekly Acquisitions List is a list of publications by various public bodies and agencies of the federal government that were catalogued in the previous week. 

Some of the documents in the most recent list include:

• Audit of Indigenous Intervention Centres (Correctional Service Canada): "The NIP [National Indigenous Plan] provides a national framework to transform Indigenous case management and corrections with an Indigenous first approach through enhancing various policies, operations and practices to better meet the needs of Indigenous offenders. The NIP includes streamlining existing Indigenous resources and services to ensure that Indigenous offenders have earlier access to parole and Indigenous interventions. Key components of the NIP include: Indigenous Intervention Centres, (...) enhanced case management, Elder and liaison services, section 84/81 enhancement, Offender’s Security Level reviews, and reintegration."
• Audit of Sentence Management (Correctional Service Canada): "CSC [Correctional Service Canada] is responsible for reviewing and analyzing court-imposed sentences in order to prepare a timeline for each offender that includes all sentences. This timeline takes into account any additional impact resulting from decisions made by the courts or the Parole Board of Canada (PBC) throughout the offender’s sentence. The interpretation and application of the legal provisions are less complex when the offender is serving a single sentence. However, many offenders receive multiple sentences, which may be imposed at different times, as a result of multiple convictions. Offenders convicted of multiple offences may be required by the court to serve consecutive sentences, concurrent sentences, or a combination of the two, making the sentence timeline more complex to calculate. It is therefore important for CSC to have an effective management framework and a system of controls in place to ensure that each admission or release of an offender is in compliance with current and historical legislation."
• Legal Aid in Canada 2022-2023 (Justice Canada): "While policy development related to criminal legal aid is a shared federal/provincial/territorial responsibility, each province and territory is responsible for the delivery of legal aid services based on their own policies and procedures. This report provides national level statistics on revenues, expenditures, personnel, and caseloads from legal aid service providers across Canada. Justice Canada has produced the Legal Aid in Canada report since 2016-17, and this is the seventh annual edition. This year’s report includes data from the 2022-23 fiscal year, as well as trend data from the past five years."

Justice Canada Report on Legal Aid

Justice Canada has published a new report on Legal Aid in Canada 2021-2022.

The report looks at sources of funding for legal aid across Canada, the number of applications, the types of clients who benefitted, the types of cases financed by the program, personnel, and the role of specialized courts in legal aid (e.g. Mental Health/Wellness/Community Courts, Drug Treatment Courts, Family/Domestic Violence Courts, etc.)

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice September 2015 Access to Justice Newsletter

The non-profit Canadian Forum on Access to Justice (CFCJ) publishes a monthly newsletter about Access to Justice.

The latest issue of the newsletter includes: 

• an article on the Final Report of the CFCJ’s Cost of Civil Justice Attrition in BC's Courts
• news about the United Nations Global Study on Legal Aid
• news about conferences 

Elections 2015: Parties Respond to CBA Questions on Access to Justice

This is a follow-up to the Library Boy post of September 1, 2015 entitled Canadian Bar Association 2015 Election Engagement Kit.

During the current federal election campaign, the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) asked the main political parties (Greens, Bloc, Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats) to answer questions about their vision for equal justice.

The parties' responses have now been made available.

They were asked three questions:

• What would your government do to bolster federal leadership on ensuring that Canada’s civil legal aid system serves the essential legal needs of all people who need help?
• What would your government do to ensure people have the legal help they need when they face criminal charges or are incarcerated?
• What would your government do to save taxpayers’ money by providing adequate legal aid to help meet people’s legal needs at an early, preventive stage

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice June 2015 Access to Justice Newsletter

The non-profit Canadian Forum on Access to Justice (CFCJ) has been publishing a monthly newsletter about Access to Justice since early 2013.

The latest issue of the newsletter includes:

• a report on the research project Paralegals, the Cost of Justice and Access to Justice: A Case Study of Residential Tenancy Disputes in Ottawa
• news about a panel at this year’s Annual Law and Society Association Meetings in Seattle on the relationship between everyday legal problems and the cost of justice in Canada
• the International Legal Aid Group Conference in Edinburgh
• plus various announcements

Evolving Legal Services Research Project

Community Legal Education Ontario, in partnership with the Institute for Social Research at York University, has undertaken a major research project to examine the effectiveness of public legal education and information (PLEI) in helping low- and modest-income people address their legal problems:

"Canadian jurisdictions, including Ontario and BC, are increasingly exploring and relying on limited legal assistance programs as a method of providing legal services to people who cannot afford legal services. Increased rationing of publicly - funded legal services has meant that public legal education and information (PLEI), either on its own or in conjunction with other unbundled legal services, is required to fill an increasingly larger role in meeting the legal needs of poor people and people with modest means. Yet we know relatively little about the extent to which PLEI is an effective legal service: for what types of clients, for which kinds of legal problems, and in which circumstances, can PLEI provide the most robust assistance. "

"Community Legal Education Ontario (CLEO) sought and received funding from the Law Foundation of Ontario (LFO) to conduct Phase 1 of a research project – the Evolving Legal Services Research (ELSR) Project – to explore the effectiveness of PLEI throughout the continuum of legal services delivery in Ontario and British Columbia. CLEO has now completed the Phase 1 deliverables – a comprehensive review of the relevant literature and, building on the literature review, a well - developed research plan for Phase 2."

In Phase 2 of the research project, qualitative and quantitative data will be collected over a 19-month period to gather knowledge concerning where PLEI is relied on as a primary form of legal services delivery as well as where PLEI is used in conjunction with other legal services. The idea is to try to zero in on the factors that contribute to PLEI’s effectiveness in supporting positive outcomes in a range of circumstances.

The Phase 1 Review of Current Literature on the topic was compiled for the project by Dr. Melina Buckley.

Statistics Canada Article on Legal Aid in Canada, 2013/14

Statistics Canada has published an article in its publication Juristat entitled Legal aid in Canada, 2013/2014:

"Access to justice in Canada is a priority of governments, policy-makers, legal professionals and the public ... One aspect of access to justice is access to legal services. Not all Canadians have the resources to pay for a lawyer. Legal aid plans have been established in all provinces and territories with the common goal of assisting lower-income Canadians who require legal services either for criminal or civil matters ... This Juristat bulletin presents results for 2013/2014 of the Legal Aid Survey, which collects information on the operation of Canada’s 13 legal aid plans."

"Legal aid plans receive funding to operate and to provide legal services from governments (both federal and provincial or territorial), as well as from client contributions, cost recoveries from legal settlements, and from contributions from the legal profession and other sources."

"The federal government provides funding for legal aid to the provinces and territories. According to data from the Legal Aid Survey, the federal government, through the Department of Justice Legal Aid Program, reported providing a total of $112 million to the provinces and territories for the delivery of criminal and civil legal aid. Provincial and territorial governments directly fund both criminal and civil legal aid. In 2013/2014, provincial and territorial governments reported contributing $643 million to legal aid plans across Canada."

"Legal aid plans in Canada reported receiving funding of $823 million in 2013/2014 ... Government sources contributed the vast majority of this amount—92% of the total. The remaining 8% of funding was received from client contributions, cost recoveries from legal settlements, and contributions from the legal profession and other sources."

Justice Canada Report on Federal Investment in Criminal Legal Aid

In the most recent Weekly Checklist of federal government publications,  there is a link to a recent report written for Justice Canada by the research firm Prairie Research Associates entitled Maximizing the federal investment in criminal legal aid:

"The purpose of this study was to explore and identify innovations/best practices in criminal legal aid that will enable the federal government to maximize its investment in criminal legal aid and help ensure that Canada’s system of justice remains accessible, efficient, and fair, particularly for economically-disadvantaged Canadians. The innovations/best practices can include efforts to promote greater efficiency (e.g., streamlining processes; reducing costs in some areas through use of new technology or using other legal practitioners or professionals to deliver services; enabling people to assist themselves for simple matters), or improved access to justice by increasing the scope, accessibility, and quality of criminal legal aid services."

"The study focused on the federal investment in criminal legal aid. However, innovations/best practices that did not directly address criminal legal aid but promoted more effective, accessible, and efficient legal aid service delivery and operations, regardless of the type of legal aid, were also considered relevant to this study."

Appendix C examines criminal legal aid in Australia, New Zealand, England/Wales, and Scotlan.

The Weekly Checklist includes a listing of titles made available by the Parliament of Canada, federal departments, and Statistics Canada to the Depository Services Program for distribution to a network of Depository Libraries in Canada and abroad.  

Recent Trends in Legal Aid

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice published a post on Slaw.ca today on Recent Trends in Legal Aid.

As the post explains:

"Keeping track of trend and change in legal aid has never been more important. Legal aid is by far the largest part of the access to justice landscape in Canada. Even with constraints of the current fiscal realities, or perhaps because of them, legal aid systems have the infrastructure, the expertise and the resources to contribute significantly to expanding access to justice in Canada. "

It looks at trends in government support for legal aid, applications, levels of duty counsel service in criminal and civil matters, etc.

Statistics Canada Article on Legal Aid in Canada, 2012/2013

Statistics Canada published an article in its publication Juristat entitled Legal aid in Canada, 2012/2013:

"Access to justice in Canada is a priority of governments and policy-makers, legal professionals and the public. One aspect is access to legal services. Not all Canadians have the resources to pay for a lawyer. Legal aid plans have been established in all provinces and territories with the common goal of assisting lower-income Canadians who require legal services either for criminal or civil matters. This Juristat bulletin presents results from the Legal Aid Survey which collects information on the operation of Canada’s 13 legal aid plans."

"In order to operate and provide legal services, legal aid plans receive funding from governments (both federal and provincial/territorial) as well as from client contributions, cost recoveries from legal settlements, and contributions from the legal profession and other sources."

"The federal government provides criminal legal aid funding to the provinces and criminal and civil legal aid funding to the territories.2 In 2012/2013, the federal government reported providing a total of $112 million to all provincial/territorial legal aid plans in Canada."

"Provincial and territorial governments directly fund both criminal and civil legal aid. In 2012/2013, provincial and territorial governments reported contributing $658 million to legal aid plans across Canada."

"Legal aid plans in Canada reported receiving funding of almost $835 million in 2012/2013 ... Government sources contributed the vast majority of this amount at 93% of the total."

"The remaining 7% of funding was received from client contributions and cost recoveries from legal settlements, contributions of the legal profession and other sources."

LexisNexis White Paper on Future of Law in Canada

Legal publisher LexisNexis Canada has published a paper on the Future of Law in Canada that outlines 4 possible scenarios for the future of the Canadian legal system by the year 2020:

"To guide us along the journey of describing the future, we utilized an important — and novel — component of our strategic toolkit: scenario planning. Rather than try to predict a single future, we believe that scenario planning has great potential for use in this “transitional period” to simulate and rehearse multiple possible futures that could have profound implications, and highlight previously undiscovered areas of connection and intersection."

"The results of our 2013 scenario planning exercise demonstrate a provocative and engaging exploration of the future of the Canadian legal system through 2020, as you will read in the following pages. This report is crucial reading for anyone interested in creatively considering the multiple, divergent ways in which our world could evolve. The sparks of insight inspiring these narratives — along with their implications for our legal system as a whole — were generated through the invaluable collaboration of many stakeholder representatives, external experts, and LexisNexis staff."

The scenarios are:

• Controlled evolution: Familiar and known stakeholders retain a full span of control over the evolution of the Canadian legal space. While there is increased focus on the cost and efficiency of legal services, the overall system adapts using proven technology and processes. Even with the cost constraints, the law societies work successfully with the court system to improve the affordable access to justice. For corporate clients, their increasing sophistication and bargaining power are keeping law firms on their toes, and the winning service providers create a lean and flexible work environment that attracts top talent and delivers the best value to the marketplace.
• Open season: Globalization and new technologies have opened the door to unexpected competitors that disrupt the legal system. Leveraging law society regulations that allow third-party legal services, professional services firms previously offering accounting and consulting services now offer legal services as part of their end-to-end offer, while tech-savvy boutique law firms are delivering legal services in novel, low-cost ways. Clients are reaping the benefits of more choice and better access while law societies, the judiciary and law schools reorganize to better address the new entrants. Traditional firms have made drastic changes to survive. The winners take risks and create innovative practice models that change the way lawyers value themselves and their firms. 
• Patchwork reform: To address the public outcry for affordable access to justice, governments from across Canada intervene in the regulation of the legal system. Public funding has modernized the court system and increased legal aid, and the new regulations triggered the launch of a broad range of lower-cost legal services enabled by innovative and efficient uses of technology. While the law societies have lost some independence, the legal community consensus is that government reforms and funding have helped inform the public and demystify legal services. The winning law firms have restructured to better service more market segments, and offer more flexible career choices. Clients benefit from the structured choices and prices available in this more controlled environment. 
• Breakaway: By creatively embracing technology, the Canadian legal system is better, faster and cheaper. New government regulations have encouraged corporate ownership and governance of law firms and the consumer-oriented Canadian Legal Bill of Rights continues to attract tech-savvy entrants who bring the best practices in digital innovation to Canada. In addition to smaller niche players, large non-legal service providers enter the market with unprecedented scale and efficiency. Traditional law firms have been hit the hardest. Many lawyers have had to specialize, and competition for the best talent is intense. The winners operate as decentralized, virtual teams working closely with non-legal business partners to find growth opportunities.

Cowper Report Calls for Major Overhaul of British Columbia Criminal Justice System

Vancouver lawyer Geoffrey Cowper today released his final 175-page report into reforms to improve the British Columbia criminal justice system:

"In his report, A Criminal Justice System for the 21st Century, Geoffrey Cowper, QC, chair of the Justice Reform Initiative, offers recommendations to government and the judiciary on ways to achieve overall timeliness, improve court and judicial administration and improve the experiences of victims and the community."

"Included in the review and also released today is a report from the Legal Services Society examining legal aid funding and a review of B.C.'s charge assessment process submitted by Gary McCuaig, QC."

The government commissioned the review earlier this year in response to frustration within the legal system because of lengthy delays.

Supreme Court of Canada Justice Thomas Cromwell Leads Access to Justice Initiative

The most recent issue of The Lawyers Weekly features an article on an access to justice initiative being led by Supreme Court of Canada Justice Thomas Cromwell:

"Since 2010, the soft-spoken Supreme Court of Canada judge from Nova Scotia has spent many of his waking 'off' hours spearheading a low-profile, but highly ambitious, national project to slay (or at least tame) the beast besetting justice in Canada and other western nations: the general unaffordability of professional legal services."

"As chair of the national Action Committee on Access to Civil and Family Justice, Justice Cromwell oversees an ad hoc group broadly representative of the legal community across Canada, including judges, the organized Bar, legal regulators, legal aid plans, pro bono plans, court administrators, academics, and the deputy justice ministers for Alberta and Canada (...)"

"The impetus for this unprecedented national initiative to improve 'access to justice' came four years ago from Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who raised a red flag about middle-income Canadians’ inability to afford lawyers."

Access to justice was an issue much in evidence at the recent annual meeting of the Canadian Bar Association that took place earlier this month in Vancouver as can be seen in a number of resolutions passed:

• Access to Justice − Tax
• Improving Access to Justice through Legal Expense Insurance
• Criminal Legal Aid Review 

University of Windsor Law Prof Finds Self-Represented Litigants Going Through "Real Trauma"

This is a follow-up to the January 25, 2012 Library Boy post entitled Research Project on Self-Represented Litigants.

University of Windsor law professor Julie Macfarlane is interviewing hundreds of self-represented litigants in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. about their experiences in the family and civil court systems.

As part of her research so far, she has discovered that up to 80 per cent of people in family court and 60 per cent in civil cases represent themselves. This has to do with lower funding for legal aid programs and the greater availability of legal information online.

She explained to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday that many people are having a bad experience:

"Whatever reason, the results are rarely favourable or enjoyable for those who choose to go it alone, according Macfarlane."

" 'I can certainly tell you I’ve heard a few good stories, but the overwhelming majority of the stories from people are ones of frustrations,' Macfarlane said."

"Macfarlane found people who represent themselves 'suffer real trauma' in doing so.She said the process 'overwhelms them'."

"Many people report feeling as if they were treated as second-class citizens and not taken seriously (...)"

"She also found judges can be difficult to deal with, according to reports. 'Judges are accustomed to dealing with legal counsel who are much more familiar with the process. Judges can become exasperated and impatient with self-represented litigants,' Macfarlane said."

 Earlier Library Boy posts on the topic include:

• Judges Struggling to Deal With Increased Number of Self-Represented Litigants (November 1, 2010): "This week's issue of The Lawyers Weekly includes the article Judges grapple with unrepresented litigants that quotes Judge François Rolland, chief justice of Quebec’s Superior Court, on the growing and disturbing trend towards self-represented litigants (...)"
• Dealing With Self-Represented Litigants (August 22, 2011): "Precise statistics are hard to come by. Still, in a survey of lawyers attending the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Family Law Summit last June, Queen’s University law professor Nicholas Bala found that 80 per cent of the 167 respondents reported they were encountering SRLs more often."

Statistics Canada Legal Aid Report 2010-2011

Statistics Canada has published a new report on Legal Aid in Canada: Resource and Caseload Statistics 2010/2011.

It presents information on the operation of Canada's 13 legal aid plans. The report includes information on the legal aid plans, personnel resources, revenues and expenditures, as well as information concerning applications for legal aid.

Among the highlights:

• In 2010/2011, the federal government reported providing a total of $112 million to the thirteen provincial/territorial legal aid plans. The thirteen provincial/territorial governments reported contributing $563 million
• In 2010/2011, legal aid plans spent $752 million providing legal aid services in eleven provinces and territories (excludes Northwest Territories and Nunavut), which amounts to about $22 per resident. In the nine provinces and territories that provided data for both 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 (also excludes Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick), legal aid spending was down about 3% from the previous year after adjusting for inflation
• Eight of eleven legal aid plans spent more on criminal matters than civil matters in 2010/2011 (excludes Northwest Territories and Nunavut). The three legal aid plans that spent less on criminal matters were in Quebec, Ontario and Prince Edward Island
• About 670,000 applications for legal aid were submitted to legal aid plans in ten reporting provinces and territories in 2010/2011 (excludes Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut). Civil matters accounted for over half (56%) of applications
• Legal aid plans in ten reporting jurisdictions (excludes Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut) approved approximately 449,000 applications for full legal aid services in 2010/2011. Criminal matters accounted for over half (55%) of approved applications

April 2011 Newsletter of David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights

The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights at the University of Toronto has published its April 2011 newsletter.

It contains articles on a number of Supreme Court of Canada cases dealing with the award of costs in Charter litigation, the constitutionality of a pan-Canadian securities regulator, the constitutional right to a lawyer during a police interrogation, possible discrimination in government supplementary death benefits programs, etc.

The issue also features the 2011 Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture by Marlys Edwardh of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP on legal aid and Charter challlenges.

The complete list of newsletters can be found on the Centre's Resources page.

Statistics Canada Report on Legal Aid 2009-2010

Earlier this week, Statistics Canada released a report entitled Legal Aid in Canada: Resource and Caseload Statistics 2009/2010.

The report presents information on the operation of Canada's 13 legal aid plans. The report includes information on the legal aid plans, personnel resources, revenues and expenditures, as well as information concerning applications for legal aid. It presents a broad analytical overview of legal aid in Canada and provides data tables and figures at both the provincial/territorial and national levels. Most of the information for the report is based on data collected from the Legal Aid Survey, conducted annually by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.

Among the highlights:

• With the exception of Quebec and Ontario, legal aid plans spent more on criminal matters than civil matters in 2009/2010
• In 2009/2010, legal aid plans spent $762 million on providing legal aid services in 11 provinces and territories. After adjusting for inflation, legal aid spending was up about 4% from the previous year
  
• inal matters, while in Ontario the figure was 47%. In the other jurisdictions the proportion of direct expenditures on criminal matters ranged from 56% for Alberta to 74% for Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories
  
• Legal aid in Canada is funded primarily by provincial/territorial and federal governments. In 2009/2010, legal aid plans reported receiving funding totalling over $721 million with 93% of this amount coming from government sources. Other funding is received by way of client contributions, cost recovery monies and contributions from the legal profession
  
• Provincial and territorial governments directly fund both criminal and civil legal aid. The $547 million contribution in 2009/2010 represented a 6% increase from the previous year (after inflation) and marked the fifth consecutive annual increase. In 2009/2010, funding was up in 9 of the 13 jurisdictions (after inflation), led by Manitoba at 31%
  
• The federal government contributes directly to the cost of criminal legal aid only. In 2009/2010, funding for all 13 jurisdictions totalled $112 million. After adjusting for inflation, this figure was down slightly from the year before
• About 745,000 applications for legal assistance were received by legal aid plans in the 11 reporting provinces and territories in 2009/2010, a decline of 5% from the previous year. The decline was driven by fewer civil legal aid applications as the number of criminal legal aid applications remained unchanged
• In 2009/2010, the reporting legal aid plans approved almost 500,000 applications for full legal aid services (including providing information, advice and representation in court), a decrease of 1% from the previous year. Criminal matters accounted for over half (56%) of approved applications
  

Literature Review on Access to Justice for Middle-Income Canadians

This is a follow-up to the Library Boy post of February 17, 2011 entitled Chief Justice of Canada's Remarks About Access to Justice.

The post referred to a speech by Canada's Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin at a recent University of Toronto colloquium on Access to Civil Justice for Middle Income Canadians.

As part of the conference package, organizers prepared a very detailed literature review on the issue of access to justice:

"Broadly speaking, our goal is to identify the most acute, unmet civil legal needs in the province for middle-income Ontarians across different key areas of law, and to explore a range of existing and possible solutions to these problems. Our current efforts are focusing on the problem as it exists in Ontario, but many of the themes and issues we raise apply to the rest of the country, and indeed to many other developed countries. The paper will be used as a starting point for broader policy discussions and ideas (...)"

"Our focus in this paper is on the highest areas of civil need: family law, employment law, and consumer and debtor/creditor law. Finally, we explore the literature on issues and innovations in the private sector, where the supply of lawyers that provide the majority of legal services to individuals is dwindling and a fee structure based on an hourly billing model is unaffordable for most. In this context we focus on innovations in legal service provision that confront the 'economics' of legal services: legal insurance plans; contingency fees and class actions; 'low bono' models; 'unbundling' of lawyers’ services; solutions to lawyer supply issues; and emerging alternatives to the billable hours regime."

B.C. Legal Aid Commission Concludes System Broken

Earlier this week, the Public Commission on Legal Aid in British Columbia released its report on the sad state of legal aid in the province.

Commissioner Leonard T. Doust makes 7 overarching findings:

"The legal aid system is failing needy individuals and families, the justice system, and our communities.

Legal information is not an adequate substitute for legal assistance and representation.

Timing of accessing legal aid is key.

There is a broad consensus concerning the need for innovative, client-focused legal aid services.

Steps must be taken to meet legal aid needs in rural communities.

More people should be eligible for legal aid.

Legal aid should be fully funded as an essential public service."

To remedy the situation, he presents a number of recommendations, including:

• Recognize legal aid as an essential public service
  
• Develop a new approach to define core services and priorities
  
• Modernize and expand financial eligibility
  
• Establish regional legal aid centres and innovative service delivery
  
• There must be greater collaboration between public and private legal aid service providers
  
• Provide more support to legal aid providers
  

For additional news coverage, you can read:

• Legal aid fails B.C.'s most vulnerable, commission concludes (Vancouver Sun, March 9, 2011)
  
• Attorney-general rejects claims that B.C. legal-aid is in crisis (Globe and Mail, March 8, 2011)
  
• B.C. not providing most basic legal aid needs: report (Legal Feeds - blog of Canadian Lawyer and Law Times, March 9, 2011)
  

Chief Justice of Canada's Remarks About Access to Justice

Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin spoke last week at the University of Toronto’s Access to Civil Justice for Middle Income Canadians Colloquium about how ordinary people risk being priced out of the justice system. In her speech, she called on governments, academics, judges and lawyers to work to ensure better access to justice for all Canadians.

Her speech and the colloquium attracted some media attention:

• Access to justice becoming a privilege of the rich, judge warns (Globe and Mail, February 10, 2011)
• Legal system doesn’t work for ordinary people, top judge says (Vancouver Sun, February 14, 2011)

More about the University of Toronto’s Middle Income Access to Civil Justice Initiative.