Statistics Canada Report on Legal Aid

Today, Statistics Canada released a report entitled Legal Aid in Canada: Resource and Caseload Statistics, 2006/2007.

"This report presents information on the operation of 11 of Canada’s 13 legal aid plans. The report includes information on personnel resources, revenues and expenditures of legal aid plans, as well as information concerning applications for legal aid. It provides data tables at both the provincial/territorial and national levels. Most of the information for the report is based on data collected from the Legal Aid Survey, conducted annually by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics."

Highlights:

• Canada’s legal aid plans spent $658 million in 2006/2007, down 4% from the previous year (does not include Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island)
• The plans received 761,000 applications for assistance, a 2% decrease from the previous year. A 5% drop in the number of applications for civil matters was responsible for this decline
• About 472,000 applications were approved for full legal aid service
• Cases involving criminal matters accounted for slightly more than half of direct legal aid expenditures. This proportion has climbed over the last five years, from 46% in 2002/2003
• Governments, both provincial/territorial and federal, continue to be the major source of funding for legal aid plans (close to 90% of total revenues)
• Just over 11,000 lawyers, from both the private sector and legal aid plans, provided legal aid assistance, a 9% decline from the previous year.