Legal clinic defunded after audits
African Canadian Legal Clinic cited for ‘excessive’ expenses
Legal Aid Ontario is defunding the African Canadian Legal Clinic.
The decision affecting the legal aid clinic, which has served Toronto’s Black community for more than 20 years, was announced Wednesday afternoon by the five-member clinic committee of LAO’s board of directors.
At the same time, LAO’s president and CEO, David Field, said in a statement that the agency will immediately work with community members “to establish a new communitybased organization to deliver legal aid services to Ontario’s Black community.”
In the meantime, he said LAO will provide legal services through the Human Rights Legal Support Centre, lawyers in private practice and LAO’s test case program.
Finding that the ACLC “remains in fundamental breach of its statutory obligations” in the wake of external audits, the clinic committee will suspend funding at the end of September, or at a later date that can be agreed on by the clinic and LAO.
The decision follows years of tension between the two organizations, with LAO saying it was concerned with the clinic’s ability to manage its finances and the ACLC claiming it was put under greater scrutiny than any other legal aid clinic in Ontario.
Both sides pulled no punches Wednesday.
“There has been a 23-year war,” ACLC executive director Margaret Parsons told the Star in an interview Wednesday. “When this clinic was announced, a firestorm erupted, Legal Aid Ontario went to the press to try to not get this clinic from being opened and the attorney general of the day had to literally give them their marching orders.
“The fix was in since day one, and there was nothing that we could do that was right.”
Parsons, who claimed that the clinic first learned of LAO’s decision from a Star reporter calling for comment, said the clinic and its board will now consider their options. LAO spokesperson Graeme Burk said the clinic committee had informed the ACLC’s outside lawyers of the decision, adding that LAO staff had no prior knowledge of the ruling.
The decision comes in the wake of a 2013 audit that found that the clinic’s corporate credit card was being used for personal purchases and alleged that Parsons gave herself a $120,000 bonus over a four-year period with money that could only be used to pay for LAO-funded staff positions.
“That is absolutely, categorically untrue. I have never, ever received that as a bonus, ever,” Parsons told the Star.
Many documents related to the clinic committee’s decision, including the 2013 external audit by PwC, were posted to the Legal Aid Ontario website Wednesday. LAO provided the ACLC with nearly $670,000 in funding for 2016-17.
“The battles we wage against racism are simply too important and too vital to allow personal excesses to discredit the work,” said lawyer Julian Falconer, who advised LAO staff on issues relating to the ACLC.
“People need to judge for themselves,” Falconer said, referring to the audit reports. “It becomes clear that this executive director has to answer for very serious findings in the audit reports, and that is not about skin colour, that is about accountability.”
The audit also found the clinic “appeared to be engaged in excessive spending on taxis, travel and meal expenses,” and alleged that Parsons claimed more than $150,000 in overtime, “well in excess of the maximum hours permitted under the ACLC’s policy.”
Parsons told the Star she donated that amount back to the clinic.
Among the expenses flagged by the auditors was a $754 diamond ring Parsons charged to the corporate credit card in 2007. According to the auditors’ report, Parsons said she repaid the amount to the clinic, but the auditors said they could find no evidence of that.
Parsons told the Star she realized she mistakenly used the corporate card for the ring purchase and immediately repaid the clinic in cash, and that she offered to pay the amount back again when it was flagged during the audit.
The clinic committee said Wednesday that the ACLC has still not fully complied with some of the eight remedial conditions that were im- posed in fall 2014 following the auditors’ report, including allowing an LAO observer to attend all ACLC board meetings, that the clinic submit a financial restructuring plan for LAO’s approval, and that the clinic adopt policies in line with the auditors’ recommendations regarding meals, travel and the corporate credit card.
“We have complied with every single one of them,” Parsons told the Star. “We have worked exceptionally hard to implement them and to comply,” she said, adding that LAO “were always hell bent on this course of action, and if the ACLC walked on water, they would have said we can’t swim.”
Members of a committee that advises the LAO board on the provision of legal services to the Black community said they were disappointed, but not overly concerned over the decision to defund, pointing out that LAO has promised to immediately fund other organizations to assist Black people with legal services.
“It’s unfortunate because there is a great need within the community for these services,” said committee member Zanana Akande, the first Black woman elected to the Ontario legislature. “I’m disappointed. I’m saddened that LAO has come to the point where that extraordinary step needed to be taken.”