Cuts to legal aid are personal to me. As a community organizer I have seen first-hand the incredible advocacy legal clinics undertake in their communities and across the province to end discriminatory practices by applying pressure on both provincial and federal governments.

These cuts are significantly impacting vulnerable communities, such as temporary foreign workers and non-status communities. I can no longer refer injured migrant workers to community legal clinics because budget and personnel cuts mean they cannot accept new clients.

Nor can I get assistance from the clinics for law reform issues. Advocacy and community organizing work are in peril because of the decisions of both the Ford government and Legal Aid Ontario, who have labelled them as “non essential” and will no longer fund them.

Why attack the clinic system? It is clear that these cuts are ideologically motivated and are an assault on services that support the broad cross sector of the working class. However, I think there is a more sinister agenda of dismantling the central role that legal clinics play in building power in poor and vulnerable communities.

For close to 50 years, legal clinics have been instrumental in organizing within communities. Band-aid solutions are not the answer to address systemic issues, so the clinics saw their work as demolishing systemic barriers. Changes in ODSP, housing, employment insurance, and employment equity are directly correlated to the significance of legal clinic organizers building power.

I don’t think this has gone unnoticed by Ford and his cronies, who are working to dismantle any and all forms of opposition to their right-wing agenda.

Sadly, all the blame doesn’t lie with the Tories. Yielding to government pressure, scarcity of funds and embracing neo-liberal work models, legal clinics often adopted internally the same work models that they were fighting against in their daily work: they hired more contract, precariously employed, short-term workers; they fought unionization efforts by their staff; and many clinic boards were unwilling to adequately fund community organizing and development initiatives. Similar to many other sectors, there was a focus towards professionalization and on case work, rather than long- term community building and systemic solutions.

Community organizing is at significant risk during this round of provincial cuts. Systemic change occurs only when people come together collectively to demand larger change. While this is a crisis point, we shouldn’t simply organize from a defensive position: we should rely on the long, impressive and storied role that clinics have played and implement an offensive strategy that centres on the role of community organizing. We should be fighting to have dedicated resources for this work across the province, not just fund a few clinics here and there.

It was the forward thinking of radical lawyers, anti-poverty activists, injured workers, immigrants, refugees and housing activists that was responsible for laying the foundation of what we have today. It is incumbent on all of us to fight together to not only maintain but enhance this important resource and continue the fight against hostile governments of all stripes. Clinics shouldn’t have to prove their worth every time there is a change in the political flavour of the month.

In terms of the tough decisions that local community legal clinics across Ontario will have to make, you will be given a nearly impossible task of maintaining a vital public service while facing imposed and draconian cost- cutting measures mandated by the current government and put into effect by Legal Aid Ontario.

However, these tough decisions should not be predicated on addressing short-term pressures at the expense of a long-term vision of a vibrant community legal system within this province. Legal clinic boards are not stewards of austerity or executioners of their already pared-down budgets: they should pride themselves of their role as defenders of the public good and of the welfare of their communities.

Nor should board members forget the mandate of the clinic system to both provide quality legal services but also to empower communities through advocacy, law reform and community organizing.

For the rest of us, community and systemic legal clinics are worth fighting for. They have made a meaningful change to improve the lives of millions of people across Ontario and beyond.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/07/29/cuts-to-legal-clinics-a-sinister-plan-to-harm-the-most-vulnerable.html