Percentage of B. C. natives needing legal services still ‘ shocking’
No money from Ottawa: First Nations need more help with child protection, criminal and family cases, Legal Services Society says
Aboriginal people are a small fraction of B. C.’ s population, but the Legal Services Society says First Nations account for 40 per cent of its child apprehension cases, 30 per cent of its criminal files and 20 per cent of its family briefs.
“They are shocking numbers,” Mark Benton, executive director of the provincial legal aid organization, exclaimed in an interview after making the figures available to The Sun.
“It’s not new, but it seems worse than it’s been.”
In fact, examining the society’s data collected since 2004, the staggering aboriginal numbers seem to have been relatively constant.
Benton blamed continuing “systemic failures” — the alienation, lack of social supports and the economic plight of aboriginal people.
Statistics Canada’s most recent 2011 national household survey indicated that of B. C.’ s roughly 4.3 million population, fewer than 235,000 were aboriginal — that’s about 5.5 per cent.
“It’s a very troubling thing when 41 per cent of our clients in child protection matters are aboriginal and of course on family matters in general we are continuing to have to decline three out of five people applying for family legal aid,” Benton said.
“There are lots of issues sitting out there right now. I think there probably isn’t a bigger one than how the aboriginal community is being served.”
But he said neither level of government has addressed the concern.
“I haven’t seen anything that suggests the door is open or just waiting to be pushed, but I think it’s clearly a national issue,” Benton said about the hugely disproportionate number of native people caught up in the legal system.
“It’s particularly acute in Western Canada.”
About four per cent of the national population, natives represent more than 20 per cent of federal prisoners. Their incarceration rate is 10 times higher than non- aboriginals, according to the national Office of the Correctional Investigator.
Since 2000, the federal aboriginal prison population has increased 56 per cent.
The LSS requires people to identify themselves as aboriginal, but many decline, which means the real numbers may be even higher.
Although the federal government has responsibilities for native people under the constitution, it provides no money for legal aid.
Of the LSS’s threadbare $ 80- million budget, roughly $ 75 million comes from Victoria, with the Law Foundation donating $ 3.8 million and the Notary Foundation about $ 500,000.
“Let me talk about how much federal government funding we get for aboriginal services,” Benton said: “None.”
The cash- strapped society struggles to meet needs on a budget that’s less than it was at the turn of the century — its funding savagely cut by the B. C. Liberals after they took office in 2001.
At one time, the LSS had a series of offices in aboriginal communities — no more. For the last eight years, the society has tried a number of initiatives to restore its presence and to do more early intervention work.
“In 17 aboriginal communities, you can go and apply in person for legal aid, ( just) not every day,” Benton said.
About five years ago, it also hired aboriginal community legal workers on Central and North Vancouver Island for child protection problems.
“If you can imagine somebody who has the role of a concierge if you’re at risk of having your child apprehended, who tells you about the system, who tells you what’s going to happen next, a person who can set up the meetings, make some conversations happen — that’s what that role is about,” Benton explained.
“We run a specialized aboriginal law website and a series of publications that are focused on the aboriginal community, including graphic- novel- style explanations of legal issues.”
The society is also involved with the province in specialized aboriginal courts in New Westminster, Kamloops and Duncan, largely developed by local judges, providing duty counsel and recruiting elders to advise the court and providing them with an honorarium.
All of those aboriginal initiatives, though, are funded by the Law Foundation and the Notary Foundation,
“It leads to the question, what’s the provincial and federal role in this?” he said.
Even court- mandated, socalled Gladue reports on the specific circumstances of aboriginal offenders that are supposed to be available to judges for sentencing are a hitandmiss process.
“We have been funding those again with our non- government funding, principally from the Law Foundation,” Benton said. “Most judges are surprised that we don’t have money for that either, even though it is such a core part of the justice system. This is a highly problematic area.” Benton said the society was reviewing its entire strategy on serving aboriginal communities — “I recognize we have a long, long way to go.”