Ontario lawyers applaud plan to boost legal aid eligibility, but say more help needed

Legal Aid Ontario announced it is planning a three-year increase to financial eligibility thresholds for family and criminal duty counsel and criminal certificate services.

The provincial agency that provides legal help for low-income Ontarians is planning to expand eligibility for its services, a move that some lawyers applaud but add it’s only a “first step” toward fixing Ontario’s legal aid system.

Last month, Legal Aid Ontario announced it is planning a three-year increase to financial eligibility thresholds for family and criminal duty counsel and criminal certificate services. It said the move aims to help more low-income Ontarians access legal aid and reduce the backlog in criminal courts.

The current eligibility thresholds are dependent on family size and income. A single person would have to make $22,720 or less to qualify for criminal and family duty counsel, a requirement that increases to up to $50,803 for families of five or more.

The new plan proposes to increase the income threshold for those duty counsel services and criminal certificates to $45,440 for families of up to four people, for three years. The asset threshold for legal aid applicants would also increase to $15,000, regardless of family size.

Attorney General Doug Downey said the increase is expected to help an additional 180,000 people each year, particularly those most vulnerable while navigating the legal system.

“It’s an intimidating system, it’s got a different vocabulary, it’s complicated,” Downey said in a video call. “To have somebody help navigate you through that, by definition, makes it a good public service and makes the system function better.”

Downey added that removing the family size stipulations for the income thresholds also aims to reduce red tape for those trying to access legal aid.

“This is a service to an individual, regardless of their circumstances,” Downey said. “It means duty counsel and legal aid itself can spend less time on administration, trying to figure out whether (they) have three kids or four kids or two kids.”