Social Policy in Ontario

Ontario’s ethnocultural legal clinics get new funding

Posted on March 13, 2015 in Child & Family Delivery System

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TheStar.com – News/Immigration – Ethnolinguistic legal clinics will get a slice of $4.2 million in extra funding for Legal Aid, though the bulk of the money will go to mainstream clinics.
Mar 13 2015.   By: Nicholas Keung, Immigration reporter

Legal clinics that focus on serving the GTA’s growing immigrant communities will get a slice of the province’s $4.2 million new funding, but the bulk of the money will go to mainstream neighbourhood clinics.

After years of stagnant funding to assist vulnerable groups with unique language and cultural needs, the so-called ethnocultural legal clinics are expected to receive a $86,000 raise in annual operational funding. Legal Aid Ontario is to announce the funding on Friday.

“This is a provincial investment that will significantly improve the legal aid services in Ontario,” said Nye Thomas, the LAO’s director general in policy and strategic research. “The funding will effectively address the concerns raised previously by the ethnolinguistic clinics.”

The Metro Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario and the African Canadian Legal Clinic — which serve minority groups across the province — were concerned the new funding would be based simply on the poverty rate of the population within a clinic’s geographical boundaries, and not reflect actual caseloads that go far beyond.

This week, the three clinics have all been told by the LAO that they will each receive an extra $86,000 for the 2014-15 fiscal year. The regional legal clinics in Durham, Halton, Peel and York regions are the big winners, recognized for the growth of the general population and specific needs in their communities.

“It took us 20 years to get the Chinese head tax redress and it’s taken us 23 years to get the funding to hire one more staff from Legal Aid Ontario,” said Avvy Go, executive director of the Chinese and Southeast Asian legal clinic, which has had only five staff since its 1998 inception and serves 2,000 clients a year.

“We’ve been waiting for additional resources for so long, and we are pleased with any extra funding for our services.”

Shalini Konanur, of the South Asian legal clinic, which serves one of Ontario’s fastest growing communities, said the allocation shows LAO does recognize the needs of the clients it serves.

With immigrants, most of them visible minorities, making up an increasing proportion of the population in cities outside Toronto, Konanur said that legal clinics traditionally focused on poverty and housing issues are also faced with emerging needs involving racism and immigration issues.

She said Ontario’s legal aid system must design a long-term strategy to better coordinate resources and equip all clinics to serve the province’s changing demographics, instead of just counting on ethnolinguistic-specific clinics to serve those needs.

One successful example, Konanur said, is a collaboration between the Safe Centre of Peel project by her clinic, North Peel Dufferin Community Legal Clinic, and Mississauga Legal Services, to assist victims of domestic abuse in a region with a high South Asian population.

“We can stretch our dollars further by working together and leveraging each other’s expertise,” said Konanur.

Go and Konanur both said they haven’t decided yet how the new money will be spent.

“We need to talk to other clinics to see how they are going to use their money,” said Go. “In York and Peel, there’s a huge Chinese and Southeast Asian population. Are the clinics there going to spend more resources on interpretation, on immigration cases? Do we need to extend the hours of our satellite office there? It’s all going to affect how we spend the money.”

The province will have invested an extra $94 million into the legal aid system over the next three years, about 20 per cent into its 76 legal clinics.

Major funding recipients:
Community Legal Clinic of York Region: $384,000
Mississauga Community Legal Services: $271,000
Halton Community Legal Services: $251,000
Durham Community Legal Clinic: $238,000
Scarborough Community Legal Services: $179,000
Neighbourhood Legal Services (London & Middlesex): $179,000
North Peel & Dufferin Community Legal Services: $126,000
West Scarborough Community Legal Services: $126,000
Community Legal Clinic – Simcoe, Haliburton, Kawartha Lakes: $119,000
Willowdale Community Legal Services: $119,000
Source: Legal Aid Ontario

< http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2015/03/13/ontarios-ethnocultural-legal-clinics-get-new-funding.html >

Tags: budget, featured, ideology, multiculturalism, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living

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