Duane Hicks
The Northwest Community Legal Clinic is among the 11 Northern Ontario legal clinics that will benefit from an expansion to client services, enabling them to better help in matters involving senior and elder law, employment law, and Workplace Safety Insurance Board law.
Legal Aid Ontario is investing $3.3 million in funding to expand client services by addressing the unmet needs of low-income Ontarians and vulnerable or specific client groups.
The current government has expanded financial eligibility for legal aid services over the last couple of years, meaning more Ontarians are qualifying for both legal clinic and legal aid services, said Trudy McCormick, executive director of Northwest Community Legal Clinic.
“As part of what’s happening, and to support that expansion, Legal Aid has provided funding for projects in different areas of law where we see the use will increase with the expansion of eligibility,” she noted.
“In the north, the 11 community legal clinics in Ontario have worked together first to do a needs assessment, looking at legal needs across the north,” McCormick explained.
“And then we did an application through Legal Aid for funding for positions in some of the areas that needs were identified in, as well as where we expect there to be additional need due to the eligibility expansion.”
The three different areas include senior and elder law, employment law, and WSIB.
Three new case worker positions will be created to handle cases in each of these three areas, as well as to support the 11 clinics in providing additional services and in doing community outreach.
“Community development is a really important part of this,” McCormick stressed.
“It’s not just about having case files.”
For example, in the case of seniors, the case worker will be educating them about their rights, as well as bringing information to seniors in the involved communities that would help them navigate the legal system.
The 11 northern clinics currently are collaborating to set up committees to oversee the three positions and doing the hiring in early 2017.
All three positions, if clinics want them, will provide support and help them provide service in their respective catchment areas.
“Because the legal clinics are independent organizations, if one clinic says, ‘We’re not interested in doing extra WSIB law, we don’t have the capacity right now,’ then perhaps they won’t work with them,” noted McCormick.
“But they’ll available to work with all.”
McCormick said the Northwest Community Legal Clinic welcomes the additional help.
“I think it’s great,” she remarked. “We really appreciate the support both from the Attorney General and from Legal Aid to be able to do this.
“For example, WSIB law is a very specialized area of law, and to have the expertise on our own in each of the 11 clinics isn’t realistic,” McCormick conceded.
“It also takes a lot of time to work on WSIB law.
“So if we have a WSIB expert who can mentor people, who can co-counsel with people—work on a file with them—it makes it possible for us to do things in our offices we couldn’t do on our own,” she said.
“And we wouldn’t have the workload to have an entire position dedicated to that one thing so by sharing it, we get the benefit of the expertise,” McCormick added.
“The same with employment law, the same with seniors and elder law.”
Another example is the person handling senior and elder law might develop an education outreach package, then all 11 clinics could use it in their respective communities instead of having to develop them individually.
“We have a very small staff, but we don’t have to have all that knowledge in-house—we can still access it for people in town,” McCormick stressed.
“We don’t need a WSIB or senior law expert, but we can get the expertise for people because we’re part of the project, actively involved, and entitled to that help for our clients.”
Legal Aid Ontario has said that as the population in Northern Ontario continues to age, the low-income senior population is growing and is in need of legal advocates.
Elders have specific legal needs, ranging from consumer protection, elder abuse, and issues with long-term care facilities to consent and capacity board hearings.
Likewise, those with precarious and low-income employment in Northern Ontario have had their rights ignored with respect to working conditions and collecting unpaid wages.
The situation is even more difficult for those facing discrimination, such as aboriginal people and those whose first language is not English.
And injured workers of limited means have little access to legal assistance and often find themselves in the complex process of working with WSIB without legal representation.
The $3.3-million investment from the province comes from the $10 million in additional funding provided by the Ontario government in 2014.
Legal Aid Ontario announced it would provide clinics with this support in 2015 as part of its clinic financial eligibility expansion in 2015-16.
Clinics received the initial $6.7 million in July, 2015.
