Cori Chapman had to pull money out of her retirement savings so that her family could be represented by a lawyer at the coroner’s inquest into the death of her son, Brad.

If not for that, they would have been left to fend for themselves during the complex and heart-wrenching proceeding.

“It’s quite formidable and intimidating to be in a courtroom of any sort, and particularly an inquest into the death of my son,” Chapman told the Star in a recent interview. “We would have had to do all that on our own. I can’t imagine it.”

But when she turned to the provincial government for help to cover her $38,000 legal bill, she was denied.

Her case highlights the fact there is no recourse for legal funding for many families involved in coroner’s inquests, which probe the circumstances of a person’s death and produce recommendations so that similar deaths do not happen again.

This despite the fact that many other parties at inquests — in the Chapman case, this included the provincial government, the city and the police — are represented by publicly-funded lawyers.

“It’s not that I’m rolling in money at all, but I think of other people: What do they do? What does somebody who can’t afford that do?” Chapman said, adding she would have preferred to give the money to her grandchildren.

“And a few years back when I was raising my kids I could not have afforded to do that. I was living paycheque to paycheque, so there we would have been without (legal) representation, or I would have incurred a huge debt that would have been unpayable.”

Chapman’s 43-year-old son, Brad, died of an opioid overdose in 2015. Among the jury’s 55 recommendations from the inquest, which spanned nearly a month at the end of 2018, was a call for the province to declare the opioid overdose epidemic a public health emergency and provide more funding and resources to harm-reduction agencies.

Brad was first discovered by a security guard slumped over in an alcove near Yonge and Gerrard streets Two police officers who arrived on scene before paramedics did not move Chapman into what is known as the recovery position to improve his airway, according to a summary of the evidence heard at the inquest that was written by the presiding coroner, Dr. David Eden.

“Multiple witnesses, including a doctor with extensive experience with first aid, testified that if Mr. Chapman had been turned onto his side and his neck straightened (the ‘recovery position’), his airway would have been better protected and his death might have been prevented,” Eden wrote.

Police testified they had been trained to be cautious of moving someone who may have a neck or spinal injury. But according to Eden, the doctor testified that “in any event, airway and breathing must be higher priorities than neck protection. A living person with a spinal injury is a preferable outcome to a dead person with a protected neck.”

Front-line officers were also not required at the time to carry naloxone, which can temporarily counteract the effect of an overdose until the person is transported to hospital.

A Toronto police spokesperson said that front-line officers in the four divisions covering downtown Toronto are now required to carry naloxone, and police first aid training now includes how to use naloxone and recognize the signs of an overdose.

Chapman said it was crucial to have her lawyer, Suzan Fraser, at the inquest to help focus the issues, cross-examine witnesses and propose important recommendations for public safety that the jury later adopted. She said Fraser offered her a “considerably discounted rate” in the face of the government’s refusal to help. Chapman said she’s so far paid back about $26,000.

She emphasized that she’s grateful for Fraser’s work, and that it’s important that she be paid for that work.

“For one thing, the other lawyers there were paid, and no doubt some of them were probably paid at a much higher rate than what Suzan charged us,” she said. “This was good public work, and we don’t expect anybody else to not get paid. I don’t believe she should have done it for nothing. In fact, I think she should be paid fairly.”

Fraser outlined the inquest evidence in a letter last year to Mario Di Tommaso, deputy solicitor general for community safety, saying the family should be granted legal funding under a government program that provides up to $40,000 for inquest lawyers to families if the deceased was involved in a police-related incident that caused, or contributed to, their death.

(The ministry also has a program to reimburse families at inquests where the person died as a result of a crime. Some families have also been successful in getting funding from Legal Aid.)

Fraser argues that the decisions made by police contributed to Brad Chapman’s death, and therefore his family should be eligible to recoup their legal costs. The program was created by the previous Liberal government in direct response to the Michael MacIsaac inquest, a man who had been shot and killed by police and whose family was trying to get funding for a lawyer.

Di Tommaso told Fraser in an October letter that the request for funding was denied as the ministry concluded Brad’s death was not a “police-related incident.” Fraser subsequently wrote to Premier Doug Ford, asking him to intervene, and two months later received a brief reply from Ford expressing his sympathies to the family and referring them back to the Ministry of the Solicitor General.

Ministry spokesman Brent Ross told the Star that a committee makes recommendations based on “established program criteria” regarding the eligibility for inquest funding. He referred the Star to the ministry’s website for the criteria, which simply indicates that the family member must be granted standing at the inquest and the deceased “was involved in a police-related incident that resulted in, or contributed to their death.”

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He said the deputy solicitor general is not a member of the committee, but is responsible for giving final approval of the decision to reimburse.

In her letter to the premier, Fraser said that even if the family doesn’t meet the criteria for this particular program, the province should still reimburse them for contributing to public safety in Ontario through their participation at the inquest. She said this issue is bigger than the Chapmans, highlighting that fairness at coroner’s inquests requires funding so that families can be represented by lawyers.

“We have to recognize these are important processes, and the families should have a right to participate, and they do in most cases,” Fraser told the Star. “But it should be meaningful in that we help them so that they don’t have to pay out of pocket when it’s going to be a process that benefits the public as a whole.”