Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) has asked all clinics in the province to work on transforming the clinic system into a more efficient one, serving clients better. The clinics in Toronto decided that the best way to do this was to move to fewer and larger clinics. They received funding from LAO to look at amalgamating the 17 clinics in Toronto, York and Peel into 4 or 5 mega-clinics. We chose not to participate in the Toronto-brand of transformation because we could not accept some of the Project’s basic premises.
Instead MCLS approached transformation differently. Starting last year after the province announced that $10 million would be dedicated to enhancing clinic law services in Ontario, we began a dialogue with LAO, the GTA Transformation group, the province and the public to bring awareness to the fact that Mississauga and Peel Region were the 2nd most underserved communities in Ontario when it came to legal clinic funding. We asked LAO that part of the new funding from the province should be dedicated to fix the funding problem in Mississauga and by extension Peel Region. We determined that in Ontario the legal clinic staffing average was one staff person for every 30,000 people. In Peel, it is one staff person for every 80,000 people. We asked for additional funds for Mississauga which would increase our staff to 24 from its current complement of 10. We also asked for 38 staff for all of Peel from 16 staff to meet the provincial average.
As part of this campaign we appeared before the Region of Peel’s Intergovernmental Relations Advisory Committee. As a result, Peel Regional Council sent a letter to the Attorney General supporting our campaign for increased funding and opposing any attempt to merge Peel clinics with clinics in Toronto. We also lobbied with our provincial members of parliament and received letters of support for increased funding from MPP Amrit Mangat, MPP Jagmeet Singh, and Associate Minister Dipika Damerla. One MPP, Bob Delaney, even presented to the Legislature a petition signed by over 600 Mississauga residents asking for fair funding for the MCLS.
One of the reasons that MCLS did not participate in the GTA Transformation Project is that we see ourselves not as part of the GTA Region of clinics. For more than 25 years, we have been a participating member of the Southwest group of legal clinics. Accordingly MCLS signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which we agreed to participate in the Southwest Transformation Project. This Project consists of several initiatives aimed at transforming the way clinic law services are conducted in the Southwest Region. These projects include transforming clinic administrative functions, using the internet and technology to help clients before their problem becomes a crisis situation, improving services to rural communities, and using social workers in clinics.
While MCLS was working on its transformation both on its own and in concert with the other Southwest clinics, the GTA Transformation Group was proceeding with its plan to amalgamate the 17 clinics in the GTA. The Group recently released its Vision Report, which includes recommendations for Mississauga (even though we specifically opted out of the Group and objected to being included in the Project). It recommends a merger of MCLS and North Peel Dufferin Community Legal Services to form one mega-clinic to serve Peel. The consultant recommended 4 other mega clinics in the GTA with staffing throughout the GTA to be equalized and redistributed based on the number of low income residents. If Toronto staff were redistributed to Peel then that would be 29 staff for this new mega-clinic, an addition of 13 more staff.
MCLS is pleased that the consultant in the Vision Report recognized that Peel is grossly underfunded. Unfortunately the clinics in the Project rejected the redistribution idea. They did not accept the idea that Toronto should lose staff and so Peel and York will only receive increased staffing if the Ministry of the Attorney-General comes up with new money for these staff. The Report concludes that future implementation will rest on whether this new money is forthcoming from the Province.
Even assuming that funding issue can be resolved, there are a number of questions that have not been answered in this report regarding how a new mega-clinic in Peel would look. For example:
The Vision Report calls for fixed offices to be replaced by access points. How many access points will there be in Mississauga?
Will these access points be open on a full time/part time basis?
Will our community partners offer their space for free?
If another party offers to pay for the free space and we lose the access point, how quickly can we find an alternative access point to maintain service?
Will all access points offer the same services to the public or will service be dependent on the expertise of the person occupying that access point?
How will a larger clinic affect Board governance?
Will Mississauga residents and organizations have a diluted voice in the larger clinic?
Will client service be enhanced by the merger of the clinics serving the 6th and 9th largest cities in Canada?
Will the clinic’s ability to respond to systemic issues be slowed with the larger bureaucracy of the new organization?
To what degree will Legal Aid Ontario support the recommendations of the Vision Report?
Most importantly, will our community support this change?
These are just some of the important questions that need to be answered in the weeks and months ahead.
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