Legal Aid Crisis

Challenging Legal Aid Cuts for Refugees

On April 11th, 2019, the Ontario Government made sweeping cuts to the legal aid budget: not only did it eliminate one third of the entire budget, it slashed 100% of the province’s funding for refugee and immigration cases. Days later, Legal Aid Ontario discontinued all new immigration and refugee services, with limited exceptions.
On August 12, 2019 the Government of Canada stepped in with one time emergency funding to mitigate the crisis. CARL applauds this announcement from the federal government, which is right to step in to avoid such irreparable harm to immigrants and refugees.

But the fight is not over. This one time infusion from the Government of Canada will not secure the future of legal aid for migrants and refugees. The province still has a critical role to play in funding legal aid services – and we hope they will step up to their responsibilities, be it in this fiscal year or next. More remains to be done to arrive at a long-term and sustainable funding plan which ensures this crisis will not come again.

Letters to Federal Leaders

CARL and the RLA wrote to all Federal Political Leaders asking them for their plan to resolve the stand-off with Ontario over legal aid for refugee and immigration matters.

Letter to Trudeau

Letter to Scheer

Letter to May

Letter to Singh

Response from Singh

To date, the only response we have received is from NDP Leader, Jagmeet Singh, who supports immediate emergency funding, and a plan to find a more sustainable funding solution going forward.

 

Tools to Contact MPPs

The Refugee Lawyers Association (RLA) and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL) are encouraging concerned individuals to reach out to their MPPs directly to engage them in action against legal aid cuts.

This one-pager is designed to be given to your MPP during a meeting or with a letter: LAO Crisis – One-Pager.

This information sheet provides a step-by-step guide to setting up a meeting, and goals for the meeting itself: MPPs Toolkit.

Sign the Petition

URGENT! Sign your name to the petition now – let the Government of Ontario know that you care about funding to Legal Aid and are concerned about how it will impact refugees and immigrants in Ontario.

Sign the Petition

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