Canadian Bar Association Releases Summary Report on Access to Justice in Canada

The Canadian Bar Association (CBA) released a summary report on the weekend on Reaching Equal Justice: An Invitation to Envision and Act.

The report finds that access to justice in Canada has become profoundly unequal and that this has lowered Canadians' degree of confidence in the legal system.

It proposes a series of actions to be taken to better guarantee citizens can have access to the justice system, including:

• more federal funding for civil legal aid - the report advocates that by 2025, all Canadians whose income is two times or less than the poverty line (Statistics Canada’s Low Income Measure) are eligible for full coverage of essential public legal services
• effective triage and referral systems guiding people along the appropriate paths to justice
• encouraging limited scope retainers or unbundled legal services
• legal expense insurance for middle income Canadians
• an expansion of pro bono services
• and more