NCJ Number
166880
Date Published
1995
Length
48 pages
Annotation
Financial eligibility for legal aid services in Canada is examined, with emphasis whether financial eligibility in each province should be a Federal policy issue.
Abstract
The study was prompted partly by awareness of the Federal-provincial cost-sharing agreement and the current concerns about the current fiscal realities and the cost of legal aid. The discussion focuses on the adequacy of the existing provincial financial eligibility guidelines and the relationship between financial eligibility and legal aid expenditures. The analysis revealed that most legal aid eligibility guidelines fall within the Statistics Canada low-income cutoffs. In addition, financial eligibility is often not the most important reason for refusal of legal aid applications. In addition, variables other than the stringency and generosity of the financial eligibility guidelines appear to play an important role in the level of expenditures in a province. The analysis concluded that Federal legal aid policy should not be concerned with provincial legal aid eligibility guidelines. Tables, figures, footnotes, and appended tables