The Alberta Government announced this week that income thresholds to qualify for Legal Aid will increase starting on April 1.

Currently under eligibility guidelines, individuals with gross income of $24,456 per year ($21,668 net income) qualify for Legal Aid in the province. That will increase to $30,000 gross ($25,346 net income).

Alberta’s Minister of Justice, Mickey Amery, said that increasing the thresholds would ensure that more individuals who needed aid would be receiving it.

“Legal aid helps people in some of the most trying periods of their lives. Whether it’s a parent fighting for child support, or a survivor of domestic violence fleeing an abusive partner, fairness before the courts shouldn’t depend on the size of a person’s bank account,” he said.

According to Legal Aid’s 2022-2023 annual report, 35,449 individuals in 9,774 civil and family cases and 47,910 criminal cases were represented by Legal Aid roster lawyers. That number was up from 34,857 individuals in 2021-2022.

Calgary had the second highest number of Legal Aid certificates issued by Legal Aid in the province for cases, at 16,552. The majority of the province’s Legal Aid certificates issued were for Level 1 criminal adult certificates—at 19,599—with more complex Level 2 and Level 3 certificates representing 8,124 and 214.

Examples of more complex Level 2 certificate related offences include aggravated assault, break and enter to steal a firearm, or criminal breach of trust. Level 3 certificates are issued for the most serious and complex cases like attempted murder, murder, or applications for judicial review.

In 2021, Legal Aid Alberta refused coverage for 14,249 applicants, according to information provided by the Criminal Defence Lawyers Association for Calgary (CDLA), with 4,529 on the basis of financial indelibility.

The cost of criminal defences in the province, said Kelsey Sitar, President of the CDLA, ranged from between $3,000 to $5,000 for less complex cases (and based on the experience of the lawyer providing representation), to tens of thousands for more complex cases.

“As you get more complicated, or you get more senior counsel needing to be involved, those numbers just continue to climb.”

Gianpaolo Panusa, President and CEO of Legal Aid Alberta, said that the organization has served Albertans for 50 years, helping low-income individuals receive legal representation before the courts.

“Increasing access to our services means more Albertans will be able to get the help they need to deal with the complexities of the legalsystem. It is an important step for improving access to justice for Albertans living paycheque to paycheque,” he said.

Mixed reaction from Criminal Defence Lawyers Association

Wednesday’s announcement by the government was met by mixed reception by the CDLA which said that the increase did not go far enough to address the needs of low-income Albertans.

“It’s about roughly 17 per cent. It’s something – that’s not nothing,” Kelsey Sitar.

“The problem is, when we track it historically, and we look at how much it’s been cut in the past, we’re still trying to even get even with what we used to qualify people for before.”

She said that when combined with how much more complex litigation has become, especially criminal litigation, the number of people requiring legal assistance, the lack of sufficient Legal Aid serves to slow down the entire justice system for all involved.

Sitar said that a big part of the fight that CDLA lawyers undertook during their job action in 2023 against the government in order to increase Legal Aid tariffs, was to also ensure sufficient coverage for low-income Albertans.

“The cost of of legal fees is prohibitively expensive for most people, and it’s a significant expense even for people who are earning a solid middle class income. So, what we really need to do here is do a complete overhaul of how we decide who qualifies for legal aid services in a province.”

She said that the government had agreed to undertake a fulsome review of how people are qualified in Alberta for Legal Aid, during the job action undertaken by the province’s lawyers.

Questions sent to the Minister of Justice by LiveWire Calgary as to whether the ministry had been looking at different models of Legal Aid coverage and funding, were not acknowledged by press time.

Sitar said that other provinces like Manitoba had introduced a system that allowed for varying degrees of Legal Aid coverage based on income, rather than a hard cutoff eligibility value.

“These incremental changes are something or not nothing, but it’s the equivalent of trying to bail water out of the Titanic. This isn’t going to get us to where we need to get to, with the speed that we need to get there,” she said.

“The justice system is under an immense amount of pressure right now, and that just continues to build the number of cases that are moving through. We are losing and continue to lose competent defence counsel and lots of jurisdictions in the province, so it’s hard for people to find a lawyer.”

She said that the real solution to addressing inequities in Legal Aid coverage in the province would be to have a comprehensive review of other models and to address the concerns of stakeholders in the justice system.

“Just continuing to bump the number by 16 per cent or 15 per cent is only going to get us so far. We need to use some creative solutions here, and sit down with the people who have the knowledge, all in one room, and talk through what we can do to make this actually sustainable going forward.”