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Addario, Bentley and Burstein all happy with legal aid deal |
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Written by Todd Harrison
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Monday, 25 January 2010 |
The 11th-hour legal aid deal reached yesterday between the Criminal Lawyers Association and the Attorney-General averted a significant expansion of the eight-month-old boycott.
It seems, then, that the tactic worked — thankfully. “I was certainly worried about the effects that it would have on the system and on Ontarians' ability to access justice, which was never seen by the association as its responsibility,” CLA president Paul Burstein told the National Post. Burstein added that he is satisfied with the funding increase, and that the process and settlement “recognizes that the Criminal Lawyers Association will play a role in the future of the legal aid system.” The CLA and the Attorney-General’s office will meet before the end of the rollout increase, in April 2015, and together examine the program’s next steps.
Frank Addario, a former CLA president and the public face of the boycott, spoke highly of the government’s commitment. “This is the longest, largest commitment to legal aid funding that the government has ever made,” he said in a CBC News report, “and I'm very happy that Ontario has grasped the importance of funding this social program and its relationship to the quality of justice in Ontario.”
Attorney General Chris Bentley praised the CLA and told the CBC that the discussions surrounding legal aid were “productive” and “respectful.” Bentley says he is “really looking forward to an ever-strengthened relationship” with the Association.
The new legal aid deal will see rates rise 40% to $136 per hour over the next five years. Lawyers working on big cases — namely homicide and guns-and-gangs cases, which were the subject of the initial boycott — will enjoy a 66% increase in the same span, topping out at $160. Funds have also been allocated for increasing the rates paid to legal experts called by defence lawyers.
It is expected that lawyers participating in the boycott will begin accepting legal aid certificates as early as today. A major backlog is not anticipated.
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I imagine it was difficult for A.G. Chris Bentley to continue claiming that there was no additional funding available when his Gov`t continues to waste untold millions
http://tinyurl.com/yd8suvj
"...the disclosure could reasonably be expected to be injurious to the financial interests of the Government of Ontario,..."
on nonsense like this.
http://tinyurl.com/yaw4too