Cuts to legal aid for refugees coming in August
‘Extraordinarily marginalized’ clients may pay the price, non-profit organization fears
The Legal Services Society of B.C. will stop paying lawyers to represent refugees as of Aug. 1 because it has run out of money and has not received promised funding from Ottawa to deal with the fallout from a global humanitarian crisis.
The non-profit legal aid organization handled 860 refugee contracts in 2016-17, compared to 350 in 2013-14, and it expects to accept around 1,400 of 1,900 applications this year.
Ontario, which has 10 times the volume of cases, and other provincial legal aid plans are facing a similar crisis, which may be slowing federal funds, said Mark Benton, CEO of the society.
“We knew at the start of the year that this was going to be a problem,” he explained Monday. “I think, in part, circumstances have exceeded the federal government’s planning. They announced this year a 20 per cent increase for immigration refugee legal aid, but as you can see over the last three years we needed a 145 per cent increase to cover the costs.”
Refugees are the society’s smallest service area, but its most vulnerable clients. About half are refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey; another one-quarter come from Central and South America.
“These are not Trump refugees,” Benton stressed. “They are from places where you are at a real risk of persecution because of your political beliefs or cultural background. This is a national issue about Canada being seen as a safe haven by real people in need. We are seen as a country that welcomes people.”
Ottawa is responsible for immigration and refugee laws, including immigration tribunals, their processes, and immigration-and-refugee legal aid.
“It will have a huge impact,” complained Chris Friesen, a director of the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. in Vancouver. “The complexity of the asylum system in Canada really requires refugees have access to legal aid. I understand it’s money, but to unilaterally stop it outright really penalizes the very people you want to ensure have a fair hearing and are not put at further risk because they were not able to articulate the reasons for their asylum claim.”
He predicted lengthier hearings, delays in the asylum process and legal appeals on the grounds these individuals were not adequately prepared to represent themselves.
The federal government gives Victoria $900,000 annually for legal aid for immigrants, which the province passes on to the Legal Services Society of B.C. along with an additional $800,000, for a total of $1.7 million.
Last year, in response to the increasing demand, the federal government stepped up with an additional $530,000. Even with that, though, the society had to restrict services, Benton said.
Based on current projections, the society estimates an additional $1.07 million is needed to maintain services until year end.
“In the past, the federal government has responded and provided the additional funding,” Benton acknowledged. “But part of the problem this time is Ontario in particular has seen a huge volume — they are about $13 million in the hole.”
The Legal Services Society must stop issuing new contracts to ensure it has enough money to pay for contracts already issued, he said, because the province prohibits it from incurring a deficit or from reallocating funding from other services to cover immigration and refugee costs.
Cases that are approved before Aug. 1 will not be affected, but must be concluded by the end of the fiscal year (March 31, 2018).
Cases in which a client has applied before the deadline but not yet been approved will be processed.
“We screen these cases — these aren’t just people who show up and want to extend their time in Canada,” Benton emphasized.
“They are genuine refugee cases. These folks typically are coming from a place where they feel persecution. What they are facing is somebody else’s legal system — ours — they’re not familiar with it, often they don’t speak English or not very much English, they have low levels of literacy, they need representation just to have a fair hearing. With this particular group of clients, they are extraordinarily marginalized and highly vulnerable to the smallest errors in process.”
The test for referral to a lawyer is whether a person of modest means would pay privately for the case given the ultimate chance of success and the risk the person faces in his or her country of origin.
Lawyers earn about $1,950 for a typical case. The average annual earnings from immigration cases are about $17,300 per lawyer.
As refugee claimants cannot effectively represent themselves, providing them with representation creates efficiencies for the Immigration and Refugee Board, Benton noted.
An increase in self-represented refugees will result in longer proceedings and require hearing officers to take a more active role in ensuring the claim is properly heard.
Providing legal representation also takes a burden off immigrant services agencies and other community resources that will be needed to assist an increased number of unrepresented claimants.
The Legal Services Society also funds duty counsel who provide advice to people held in custody at the Canada Border Services’ Vancouver enforcement centre. That service will not be affected.
Benton said the society will reinstate services if additional funding is received or at the beginning of the 2018-19 fiscal year (April 1, 2018).
The federal government did not respond to requests for comment by publication deadline.