Single mothers' lawsuit against province's legal aid system heads to B.C. Supreme Court

The B.C. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday from a group of B.C. single mothers who are challenging the province's legal aid system.

The case, launched in 2017 by the Single Mothers Alliance, argues the province's legal aid funding for women fleeing abuse is inadequate, and puts them further at risk.

A judge will hear the latest arguments in their constitutional case this week, as the province tries for a second time to have the lawsuit dismissed.

"Gender-based family violence is really a life or death issue," said the advocacy group's executive director, Viveca Ellis. "When women who are already marginalized and are experiencing poverty have to navigate that system on their own … they are very, very, very at risk."

Ellis is a single parent raising a 12-year-old son.

"My personal experience as a single mother does drive my passion for all of this work," she said in an interview. "It's a case of well-being, safety and truly access to justice. 

"Because without the representation and without the ability to navigate the system, they're really left outside of it."

Experts say the risks to women navigating the legal system alone include unfavourable case outcomes — such as decreased access to children — and exposure to further abuse from ex-partners by way of fact-to-face mediation, vexatious court filings, or encounters outside the courtroom.

Additionally, the time right after abusive relationships end is when the risk of violence against women is highest. 

The province's Ministry of the Attorney General declined to comment, saying the matter is before the courts.

But in its legal filings, it argued the Single Mothers Alliance cannot speak for all single mothers' interests, because a "test case" of a constitutional issue requires an individual plaintiff to sue.

And the province said it provides adequate funding for the lowest-income single parents. However, it argued, not everyone needs a lawyer to get a fair outcome.

"The province agrees that it is an important policy objective to make reasonable access to the courts ... available to low- and middle-income British Columbians," B.C.'s lawyers wrote in a response dated May 14 last year, and "that single mothers have special needs in this regard."

But the attorney general and the Legal Services Society said "access to courts cannot practicably mean unlimited funding for legal representation."