Cuts to Legal Aid Ontario will impact low-income Ontarians’ ability to access the justice system and worsen court delays, lawyers say.

The provincial agency’s CEO, David Field, laid out in an email to staff Monday measures the organization would be taking following provincial budget cuts announced earlier this month.

He said front-line services to the public would “continue and remain strong,” but the agency will be slashing full-time positions, implementing a hiring freeze, and freezing management salaries, among other internal measures.

Field said the administrative cuts are expected to save LAO about $16.6 million. Positions will be cut mainly by eliminating vacant positions, attrition and voluntary exits, Field said, as well as “other arrangements,” which he did not specify.

LAO also expects to save an additional $13.9 million by changing some of the ways it deals with the private bar — private lawyers including those who work in the areas of criminal and family law who receive funding, known as a certificate, from LAO to represent low-income Ontarians in court.

Field said the agency is “exploring regulatory changes to support service improvements, efficiencies and cost savings,” pertaining to issues such as discretion payments, which he defined as payments over and above the regular tariff paid to private lawyers for work on a case.

Lawyers have voiced concern over the idea that discretion payments could be reduced or not paid at all, pointing out that LAO’s current tariffs often do not cover the actual number of hours a lawyer spends working on a case.

“The significant cuts to LAO’s operating budget puts the core delivery model, private counsel for poor Ontarians facing criminal charges, at risk in light of LAO’s announcement that they will be cutting back on certificate spending,” said Michael Lacy, president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association.

“This will result in clogged up courts, cases being thrown out for delay and the potential for unfair trials.”

Tammy Law, president of the Toronto chapter of the Ontario Association of Child Protection Lawyers, said many child protection lawyers would not be able to afford taking legal aid cases if the discretion payments were eliminated. For example, she said, the tariff to prepare for a summary judgment motion — where one side wants to argue they have enough evidence to forego a trial — covers eight hours, but Law said it often takes longer than that just to read all of the disclosure received from the children’s aid society.

Legal Aid Ontario plans to make changes to its clinic budget that it expects will save an additional $15 million, including putting a halt to funding one-time clinic projects.

“Cuts of those magnitudes to the clinic system budget will have a devastating impact on direct client service in clinics right across this province,” said Lenny Abramowicz, executive director of the Association of Community Legal Clinics of Ontario.

In a previous email to staff, Field said LAO had been told that its provincial funding allocation had been reduced by 30 per cent, or about $133 million. He said the agency had anticipated receiving $456 million in 2019-2020, but it would now get $323 million. He also said the reduction in funding would increase to $164 million by 2021-22.

A spokesperson for Attorney General Caroline Mulroney would not confirm the accuracy of those numbers when asked by the Star.

In a statement to the Star, Mulroney blamed the previous Liberal government for spending “more and more money on legal aid without achieving the results that legal aid’s clients or taxpayers should expect. With renewed accountability at legal aid, every dollar saved on lawyers is a dollar we can invest in public health care and education, the services that matter most to people.”

Those who need legal aid can call her ministry or LAO directly, Mulroney said in question period Monday. Her comment about saving money paid to lawyers perplexed some who work in the justice system, given that the whole point of a legal aid plan is to fund lawyers who can represent low-income people in court.

“I’m not sure what they’re referring to. Money goes to a lawyer for the service provided, the same way in health care the money doesn’t go to the patient, it goes to the doctor to provide the services to the patient,” said Dana Fisher, spokesperson for the LAO lawyers section at the Society of United Professionals.

Given that the province said it will no longer provide funding for immigration and refugee cases, Field said in the email that the agency is now solely working within the amount it receives from the federal government, which is about $13.5-$16 million. The agency will continue to use provincial transition funding to honour the certificates (payments to lawyers) that were issued in immigration and refugee cases prior to April 16, Field said.

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The province has argued the federal government should fill the funding gap for immigration and refugee cases.

The fact that these cases are heard by federal tribunals and courts should not mean that the province can be exempt from providing funding, said a member of the executive of the Refugee Lawyers Association of Ontario.

“Legal aid is the responsibility of the province under the constitution because the province has the power to govern the legal profession, the federal government does not,” said lawyer Raoul Boulakia.