After slashing the legal aid system’s budget by $133 million this year, the Ontario government is reversing its plan to cut $31 million more next year, Attorney General Doug Downey confirmed Monday.

The announcement coincided with the tabling of massive new justice legislation that, among other things, will revamp the legal aid system by making changes that legal organizations say will hamper, and not improve, access to justice.

“After full consultation, this is our plan, and our plan is to maintain existing funding on a go-forward basis,” Downey said in an interview with the Star at Queen’s Park Monday.

The government faced a backlash last spring when it cut Legal Aid Ontario’s budget by $133 million this year, with $31 million in further cuts initially planned for next year. In response to this year’s reduction, LAO imposed millions of dollars in cuts on its community legal clinics and restricted the services of duty counsel, the legal aid-funded lawyers who can assist unrepresented people in court.

Downey said Monday that the Smarter and Stronger Justice Act is his government’s bid to overhaul and simplify an antiquated and complex legal system, including changes to the way legal aid services are delivered. The legislation also includes proposed changes to the handling of class action lawsuits and the disciplining of judges and justices of the peace.

“I want people to understand that we’re making the system more sustainable, we’re making it more modern, we’re making it operate in a way that they would expect it to operate,” Downey said.

The new Legal Aid Services Act gives more power to Legal Aid Ontario to make decisions regarding who can provide legal services, which services and in which areas of the law, and who is eligible to obtain the services. However, the chief executive officer of Legal Aid Ontario told the Star that any many major changes such as determining the hourly rate paid to lawyers would still require government approval.

The Society of United Professionals, the union representing LAO staff lawyers, lambasted the new legal aid legislation in a statement as an “attack on legal representation for the poorest Ontarians,” pointing out that the new Legal Aid Services Act no longer identifies “access to justice” and services to “low-income” individuals as part of its purpose.

Unlike the existing act, which indicates that Legal Aid Ontario “shall” provide services in specific areas such as criminal and family law, the new act says LAO “may” provide services in those areas, the union pointed out.

“This change in law might sound like semantics but for thousands of poor Ontarians turning ‘shall’ into ‘may’ is the difference between being guaranteed a lawyer and losing their right to legal representation,” said Dana Fisher, vice-president of the union’s Legal Aid Ontario lawyers’ local.

“Combined with the Ford government’s severe and cruel Legal Aid Ontario cut, this bill amounts to passing the buck to Legal Aid Ontario to implement cuts without the agency being constrained by a legal mandate that protects the vulnerable people who need legal aid.”

The president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association echoed the sentiment that the legislation lacks key language to safeguard legal representation for low-income individuals. “The government is attempting to eliminate legislative protections for access to justice for the poorest Ontarians,” said CLA president John Struthers.

Despite the language used in the legislation, Legal Aid Ontario CEO David Field said his organization will continue to fund private lawyers to represent people in matters including criminal and family law.

“Legal Aid Ontario is going to continue to be a key provider of access to justice to low-income Ontarians,” he said.

The legislation proposes to allow a “mix of service providers” to provide legal aid services. Downey said it would be up to LAO if providers under the new legislation could include non-lawyers such as paralegals, but Field said his organization has no plans to expand who can provide services.

He also said LAO has no plans to reduce the hourly rate paid to private lawyers, but that it does want to have a discussion with the private bar about changing the number of hours LAO will cover for specific court matters.

The legislation would also allow LAO to offer a wider variety of services. These would include what are known as unbundled legal services, in which a lawyer provides certain specific services to an individual rather than handling their entire case.

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Aside from funding private lawyers for court cases and the duty counsel program in the courts, Legal Aid Ontario is also responsible for funding the province’s 73 community legal clinics, which provide legal services to low-income Ontarians on matters including housing and income.

The Association of Community Legal Clinics of Ontario, one of the government’s biggest critics on the legal aid file this year, said it was generally pleased with the new legislation, as it recognizes the clinics’ foundational role in the area of poverty law. But the association is also hoping to have a discussion with government to fix some of the damage of this year’s budget cuts.

“The damage is that there’s been a decrease to the amount of clinic law services that could be provided across the province,” said association executive director Lenny Abramowicz. “It’s our expectation that, over the next while, we will work with the government and Legal Aid Ontario to remedy that problem.”