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QUEBEC CITY–It was a political mismatch yesterday when Justice Minister Rob Nicholson made his debut before Canada's largest lawyers' organization, wanting to talk about funding for aboriginal justice programs and making the legal system more "efficient."
When they got a chance to ask some questions, Nicholson's audience ignored these topics entirely, pushing for answers on, among other things, how he plans to solve a national legal aid problem.
"In most parts of the country, people cannot find lawyers when they're about to be evicted unjustly, or when their disability payments are being cut off," said Judith Wahl, executive director of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, a Toronto legal clinic, who was attending the Canadian Bar Association's annual meeting.
"Many legal aid plans don't cover these issues, or cover them adequately, and elderly or low-income people end up destitute as a result," she said.
Wahl urged Nicholson to devise some "national standards" for providing legal aid in non-criminal cases.
But Nicholson said Ottawa doesn't operate civil legal aid programs, so it's technically not a federal issue.
The federal government spends $120 million a year on legal aid for criminal cases, said Nicholson, adding that he's lobbied Finance Minister Jim Flaherty for increases in social transfer payments to the provinces, which can be used for civil legal aid.
But for some it was hardly an answer. "The time has come for political buck passing to stop," said Susan McGrath, a family lawyer in Iroquois Falls and member of the association's task force on legal aid.
"The problem is getting worse. Frankly, it's a mess, and it's not good enough for Canada," she told Nicholson.
He did announce the federal government will put another $40 million into aboriginal programs between now and 2012.
McGrath said the association talked to government lawyers for years in an effort to open up the purse strings and make legal aid funding available for civil and family law cases not usually covered by provincial legal aid programs.
Although the justice minister usually gives a speech at the bar association's annual meeting, Nicholson didn't come last year because of a cabinet shuffle.
In the intervening months, the association lost the final round of a court challenge, which attempted to establish that the federal and provincial governments have a constitutional obligation to provide legal aid funding for cases outside of criminal law.
Nicholson was also asked yesterday when the federal government plans to appoint more visible minorities to the bench. He said the government takes the issue "very seriously" and is making progress.
