Starting Sept. 26, Alberta’s criminal defence lawyers will no longer be taking on Legal Aid cases in the province.
The action follows months of escalating protests by members of the province’s four largest criminal defence associations regarding what they see as inadequate funding to Legal Aid.
Job action by the lawyers began earlier in August with refusal to take on a small number of Legal Aid certificates regarding bail only services, courtroom duty counsel, compliant counsel services, and cross examination of complainant services.
The lawyers furthered their refusal to take on more complex Legal Aid cases at the beginning of September.
“What we’ve been trying to do is only do what we have to do to get the government to realize just how bad the situation is in our courts,” said Kelsey Sitar, a vice president with the Calgary Criminal Defence Lawyers Association (CDLA).
“We want to minimize the impact on the vulnerable Albertans that we want to serve.”
Members of the legal profession and supporters protested at the Calgary Courts Centre on Friday with a tongue-in-cheek “bake sale for justice.”
“I mean, we don’t know what else to do at this point,” said Sitar.
“The government is sitting on a $13 billion surplus and they will not give any of that money to Legal Aid. They won’t give any of that money to vulnerable Albertans that are trying to navigate the court system and are being forced to do that alone.
“So our hope is we can raise at least some money here today and give that to Minister Shandro and tell them we trust that you will get that money to poor people in Alberta and help fund some extra lawyers.”
Government said Legal Aid had surplus of funds
Alberta’s Minister of Justice Tyler Shandro said that work to consider increased payments to lawyers has already begun by ministry officials and Legal Aid Alberta.
“Increases to the legal aid tariff, which is the rate that criminal defence lawyers are paid for legal aid work, will be considered as part of the 2023 Budget,” he wrote in an email response.
Minister Shandro referred to an August opinion article written by Legal Aid Alberta CEO John Panusa, in a statement provided to LiveWire Calgary.
“John Panusa, CEO of LAA has publicly stated that they have all required funding necessary to ensure uninterrupted access to justice,” the response read.
The province said Legal Aid Alberta was reporting a large surplus of funds due to court closures during Covid-19 in background information provided to LiveWire Calgary.
“Funding was adjusted based on the significantly decreased demand, while ensuring Legal Aid Alberta had sufficient funding to maintain their levels of operations at that time,” wrote the province.
The province wrote that Legal Aid clients have not been adversely impacted.
According to the financial statements of Legal Aid Alberta in 2021, the province provided $24 million in deferred revenue to LAA, to be recognized as roster expenses when lawyers completed work on certificates. This deferred revenue made up nearly half of the cash assets—and the perceived surplus in funding—reported that year.
Lawyers not waiting till 2023 on review
Sitar said that the job action wouldn’t be put on hold to see if a future cabinet would make different decisions regarding Legal Aid funding.
“The problem with waiting is right now there’s a review happening of the legal aid system, and we’ve been told that that was going to include the two key ingredients: The budget that legal aid gets every year, and who will qualify for legal aid services,” Sitar said.
“That is scheduled to be done, and it’s not considering either of those things.”
She likened the review to renovating a kitchen without having any budget for new appliances.
“So we would love to wait ,and have this be at a time that maybe it was more convenient to the government, but frankly it’s them that chose to undertake an incomplete and frankly useless review at a time that they weren’t going to have a leader for their party,” she said.
Sitar took aim at Minister Shandro’s public statements, where he has previously stated the government couldn’t make any changes to funding until the next budget session.
“I don’t believe it. He’s found money to appoint a bunch of new officers to help people transfer firearms—that was not in that budget,” she said.
“So, when the government needs to find money, they can find money, and they were sitting on $13 billion. I don’t buy it.”
Tens of thousands of Legal Aid certificates at risk of not being filled
According to Legal Aid Alberta’s 2021-22 annual report, lawyers provided service to 34,857 different clients, and 61,132 Legal Aid certificates. Of those certificates, 16,367 were in Calgary.
In 2020-21, Legal Aid provided service to 34,642 clients, down from 39,804 in 2019-20 and 38,589 in 2018-19.
