Defunding the ACLC a bad idea
It’s not news — that the executive director of the African Canadian Legal Clinic (ACLC) used the clinic’s credit card to purchase a $754 diamond ring back in 2007. And that she repaid the amount, twice, she says, immediately after the purchase, and again after an audit flagged the fiscal no-no.
It’s not news that Margaret Parsons has had a running battle with Legal Aid Ontario (LAO), the government agency that funds 79 such clinics across the province. And that she loathes them as much as they seem to loathe her.
It’s not news that the pitched battle, now into its 17th year of public hostility, has divided the Black community into pro-Parsons and anti-Parsons camps — all the while feeding into the crab-in-thebarrel stereotype ascribed to such historical conflict.
It’s not news that LAO has been trying to nail Parsons for years — accusing her of improper financial management, poor fiscal controls, misstatement of statistics, misuse of LAO funds for purposes other than intended, finagling with membership lists, insufficient corporate oversight . . . And it’s not news that LAO is still trying.
The relationship is permanently broken. Despite this, the last declaration from the LAO committee that decides on sanctions against clinics had to agree that, “some progress, if belatedly, has been made. We note for example, that it finally appears to be the case that apart from the unresolved concerns relating to interfund transfers, the recommendations from the 2012 PwC forensic audit report appear to have now been completely adopted by ACLC.” Stop the press. Breaking news. But, no. It is the committee’s caustic June 2016 report that is being leaked to the media by agents quietly representing LAO. As reported this week in the Star by Metro’s May Warren and Vicky Mochama, that report said the clinic was in “fundamental breach of its obligations” under its funding agreement with LAO.
A final decision, expected in a few weeks, could see the clinic defunded by LAO.
LAO’s big and latest bet was that auditors would discover that Parsons had used LAO money — the clinic got $669,730 last year in LAO grants — to fund ACLC projects not authorized by LAO. It was supposed to be the great “interfund” controversy.
But that fizzled when the accounting firm PwC reported in April: “We noted no indications of loaning or borrowing of LAO funds.”
The news is: just when the ACLC seems to be at its best in terms of meeting the high — Parsons says unfair and unreasonable — expectations, LAO is stuck with a raised and sharpened sword.
Just when Parsons and the clinic seem to be closest to meeting every imposed condition, LAO is poised to pull its funding. This would be a dumb move and a crucial error. It would only bolster Parsons’ long-standing view that the relentless scrutiny is motivated by more than the pursuit of fiscal accountability of public dollars.
In fact, if the findings of the latest audit of the clinic are to be believed there is grudging acknowledgment that ACLC is in compliance to all but a few conditions. So, it’s best to leave Parsons alone.
Yes, that’s a tough pill to swallow. But, the hawks at legal aid are better advised to pull in their talons.
The positioning of the latest leak of info surrounding the clinic is so one-sided, obviously skewed, too old news and so wilfully blind to the ACLC’s latest improvements as to raise suspicion.
As late as the June 2016 report from LAO’s punishment committee, one might have concluded that the clinic was toast. That report said ACLC had complied with just one of eight conditions placed on it — and that defunding would happen by March 2017, if improvements were not forthcoming.
Awkwardly, two months before that decision, the internal audit division of LAO filed a report that said the ACLC had complied with 78 per cent of the 2013 recommendations from PwC, and the clinic staff was co-operative and helpful.
Still, Legal Aid Ontario began setting up an advisory group of Black professionals to provide a soft landing should clinic funds be cut. The most important goal was to cushion the anticipated political fallout from defunding one of the most legally successful clinics — one that services the most marginalized and victimized clients. The advisory group has several prominent Black citizens who have been scathing in their criticism of the clinic in the past. It also has members with questionable motives. And a third segment, discovering the tortuous history, have begun questioning why they were brought into the mess to give credence to what they fear is a hatchet job.
Make no mistake. Defunding the ACLC would hobble its effectiveness — no matter what replacements were instituted.
There is a fierce, fearless, freedomseeking advocacy that courses through this organization. Its primal source and impetus is Parsons, executive director since 1996.
The clinic is supposed to be an advocate for the Black community. And that it is.
Long before the term anti-Black racism rolled off news readers’ lips and before racial profiling made it into our lexicon, Parsons and the clinic were railing against both — at conferences, in speeches, at the United Nations and, more importantly, in the courts, including factums before the Supreme court of Canada.
Some clinics are tickled to argue a single case before the highest court; the African Canadian Legal Clinic has been there 15 times, with three more pending.
It was Osborne Barnwell, a Toronto lawyer who himself is not afraid to speak out against racism and challenge the law society, who best encapsulated Parsons in a Star series on the clinic in 2003. “I find the woman quite the right person to be at the clinic because — and this might rub people the wrong way — she doesn’t stand nonsense. I’m not surprised that there are some people who would want her head.”
From the start, there was conflict. The ACLC set up offices on Bay St., a fact that rubbed LAO officials the wrong way, Parsons said. They felt a clinic should be in the hood. Parsons interpreted that to mean they consider her an “uppity Negro” who didn’t know her place. It’s been downhill ever since.
Parsons doesn’t trust legal aid officials, thinks they try to squeeze and limit the clinic’s advocacy and reach and tries to box them into a safe and prescribed place. Instead, the ACLC has 30 staff spread over eight locations. Besides the clinic, it runs community advocacy and development and training for youth. And she is unequivocally and un- repentantly Black. The scrutiny, she says, is classic anti-Black racism.
“They came in. They thought they had the Enron of LAO. They thought they had a smoking gun. They didn’t even have a firecracker,” Parsons told the Star in 2003 concerning LAO’s investigation.
The public agency is charged to ensure accountability and transparency in the use of public dollars. This file has consumed time and burned many bridges.
On Thursday, Parsons was equally defiant as she walked me through a 10-page spread sheet that documents how and when the clinic has complied with the original eight conditions and their many subclauses and added hurdles amounting to more than 30 requirements and demands imposed by LAO.
An observer from LAO attends all ACLC board meetings. The board has at least two lawyers and two members with financial acumen and all have received training as to their duties and responsibilities. There is a financial restructuring plan. The deficit and accrued liabilities are gone. Industry standard policies on use or corporate cards, travel, meals and procurement are in place. There have been audits upon audits, and LAO funds are released only under the strictest terms. Through all this there has never been any charges of fraud — only a decrying of lack of financial controls and practices that were not in keeping with LAO requirements.
“We are 96 per cent completed. I don’t know what else to do under God’s green Earth,” Parsons said Thursday.
“Like Sisyphus, I’m rolling that burden called ACLC, and I never make it to the mountain top.
“Where is the attorney general? What, you are going to let a 23-yearold institution crumble because of past minor deficiencies. What? We are not worthy of redemption?”
LAO has done its job. It’s time to back off. Defunding the ACLC would be an example of excessive force and an abuse of power. Royson James’ column appears weekly. rjames@thestar.ca