The opposition’s Attorney General critic is not very hopeful a solution can be found with an April 1st deadline looming for legal aid lawyers to take job action.
Michael Lee says the NDP government has simply not lived up to its promises to vastly increase legal aid funding.
“Fundamentally what this is about is how do we continue with a core component, which is these legal aid lawyers that aren’t making ends meet in terms of sustaining their practices. Many litigants as a result going through family court cases or mental health type social service issues dealing with government and other regulators are going in unrepresented. They are having to deal with complex claims in a way that they are not getting that support.”
Lee says the problem is largely impacting what he called lawyers in the middle, lawyers who are neither junior lawyers in training nor senior lawyers with established practices.
He says the province has essentially continued the previous government’s legal aid funding falling short of its promises to provide a big boost.
