A Current Assessment of Legal Aid in Ontario

This article explores the development of legal aid services in Ontario over the past two decades. The authors find that per capita inflation-adjusted spending on legal aid services by the federal government has been in long-term decline (albeit with periodic upturns) with resulting negative impacts on access to justice for those in need of legal assistance. At the provincial level, since cuts made in the mid-1990s, financial eligibility guidelines have remained out of line with real measures of poverty, such as Statistics Canada’s low-income cut-offs, and per capita funding has only recently increased. The mix of legal aid service providers in the province consists of fewer certificate lawyers and per-diem duty counsel than in the past. The recent introduction of new service providers and technological innovations—driven by a desire to both reduce costs and improve client services—may have produced some positive outcomes, however, research has not yet established whether new service providers and new technologies are simply backstopping, rather than augmenting, prior levels of service. The authors conclude that there is a need for more research on the developments they describe and on how legal aid services can be enhanced and expanded in the future