Let’s see…
The Ontario government, looking at a massive deficit from the law society (those in charge of Legal Aid in Ontario), decides to assume command of Legal Aid and tells the law society that they will be phased out and that old legal aid bills may not be fully paid. The law society throws what is best described as a hissy-fit. John Rosen, the Bernardo defense lawyer, proclaims that if there is no guarantee of being paid, he is taking his marble and going home. After a few days of legal whining and threats from both sides, the Ontario government does a one-eighty and rescinds the whole idea. The law society has full jurisdiction for the remaining years in their contract.
Has something changed recently, or is legal representation for all not a human right any more? Nobody expects compassion from the PCs, but lawyers, of all people, should have some ability to compromise. What is galling here is not the fact that the lawyer want to be paid for what they have done — they have been working under a contract with the government, and that contract should be honored — it is the utter refusal of both sides to negotiate. Every civil servant is getting it in the neck these days — doctors, daycare workers, teachers — along with everybody who needs any form of social support just to get by. Would it be unreasonable to expect that lawyers might want to re-negotiate the rest of their contract to better service the people who need legal aid? Accepting that there is a problem to be solved is one thing, threatening to let every poor person in this province suffer without representation is another.
Everybody in this province — especially students — is facing rough times under our cut-happy administration, but rather than suffer with the rest of us, the law society would rather stop playing than revise their rules. It seems justice is not in Harris’, or the law society’s, agenda.
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