Article on Legal Needs Research in Canada

Lisa Moore, the director of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, has written an article on Slaw.ca that argues for the need for more empirical research into Canadians' legal needs. This is research into people’s legal problem experiences, as well into their engagement with the formal and informal legal systems:

"To date there have been five national legal needs surveys in Canada. The first survey, almost 20 years ago, includes responses from more than 4,500 low- and moderate-income Canadians related to 15 legal problem categories and 76 specific problems (...)  Most recently–in 2021– Statistics Canada engaged the largest number of respondents of Canada’s national legal needs surveys, with a sample size of 21,720 adults across the 10 provinces."

"Each survey builds on the previous version, with new legal problem categories, more modern data collection methods (landline only, landline and cell phone and, recently, online and telephone) and problem types and questions that reflect shifting understandings of complex legal problems and access to justice. Nonetheless, this collection of surveys, spanning almost 20 years and following a similar legal needs research survey design, represents one of Canada’s most robust exercises in longitudinal socio-legal research. These surveys provide evidence of changes in Canada’s legal problems landscape over time and identify areas where justice gaps persist. 'You can’t improve what you don’t measure,' and if we are to achieve equal access to justice for all, it is necessary to have an evidence base from which to understand the extent of our justice problems and, further, research that provides detailed insights on our progress, or decline."