Krog takes NDP to task over legal aid fund crunch
MLA-turned-Nanaimo mayor says he can’t grasp why NDP won’t increase funding
The man who should have been attorney general, former NDP justice expert-turned-mayor of Nanaimo Leonard Krog shakes his head in dismay.
“I had expected when we became government that we would be doing the right thing and we haven’t,” lamented Krog, the party’s caucus chair until he resigned in 2018.
“This government, my government, is really no different than the former government. Legal aid rates should be increased.”
The continuing legal-aid crisis that has spurred lawyers to threaten a strike beginning April 1 should have been quickly addressed by the NDP administration, Krog insisted.
“A number of counsel who continue to do legal aid (down from 1,500 to about 1,000) are earning less than legal secretaries at many law firms, for heaven’s sakes,” Krog fumed.
“Honestly, I have no idea (why the tariff wasn’t increased). You know, there are several lawyers or were in caucus — Attorney General David Eby, Bruce Ralston and Bob D’Eist. Ralston certainly practised in this area. I don’t know if Eby did much court work, per se, or more administrative work, but they are not unfamiliar with the system. And the diminishing number of lawyers who will do this work tells you it’s clearly, clearly underfunded.”
Instead of fixing that, Krog disappointingly pointed out his party had given a small increase to the Legal Services Society — none for a fee hike — but continued to hurt the province’s most vulnerable.
The society, which has more than 25,000 clients, mostly criminal defendants, receives about $80 million from Victoria — about the same as in 2002 despite inflation and population growth, according to the Association of Legal Aid Lawyers.
“I’m pleased and proud of the government for its modest increase (about $12 million), but it doesn’t begin to address the problem,” Krog explained.
First elected for the NDP in 1991 for Parksville- Qualicum, Krog was defeated in the 1996 campaign. He ran for the party leadership in 2003 — losing to now-finance minister Carole James — before returning to the legislature in 2005 representing Nanaimo.
He left provincial politics last year to run municipally and spend more time with his wife.
“I was the attorney general critic for 12 years, and here’s what I can safely say: Under four leaders, I delivered the message, the message hasn’t changed, and the message has been delivered by every study since the Liberals gutted legal aid when they came to power in 2001. At a time when there are surpluses, I would have expected that the government would have provided a substantial increase to legal aid and restored the community law offices, which delivered important work for the weakest and most vulnerable.”
In a frank interview, Krog said he just doesn’t understand the NDP’s reluctance.
“Many of the people who the government is trying to help with housing, deal with mental health and addiction issues, are the people who are involved in the court system fairly frequently. They are the children who end up on the streets, homeless, et cetera, or in the child welfare system, and they are often coming from families where there is a breakdown in the relationship, in the marriage, and somebody isn’t getting the assistance or advice they need to deal with the court system, you know?”
He paused.
“I say this with a certain amount of experience — it will be 39 years this year that I was called to the bar. I used to do a fair bit of legal-aid work, and I was president of the board of the community law office that provided services for residency tenancy matters, EI appeals, the sort of things, social assistance appeals, that poor folk needed help with.
“And frankly, from a feminist perspective ... look, we all knew in family law that the majority of people we were helping were women. That’s just the reality. And I don’t think it has changed much. So I just don’t get it.”
Krog said the report on legal aid released Monday by Jamie Maclaren repeated what had been said before too many times.
“Look, there was a poster kicking around in the ’60s that said something like, ‘The end of all our journeys will be to return to the place we began and know it for the first time,’” he said.
“I almost had a bit of a giggle because the bar association had recommended the same thing. We’re sort of going back and rediscovering the wheel. I would hope with this report, commissioned by the attorney general, that the government and Treasury Board will now look carefully again at providing funding that everyone in the system agrees is necessary.”
He wasn’t optimistic.
“The guts of the issue gets back to the same thing,” Krog argued — it’s about funding.
“The province is bringing in money on a legal services tax ($200 million-plus annually) that was supposed to fund legal aid, and you are not putting the money where it needs to go. Part of the problem is if you don’t need legal aid, you don’t think much about it. You think it is there. Suddenly, when it is your daughter or your son who needs legal aid, and you discover that they are not eligible, you go, ‘Oh, my god!’ Then, it’s serious.
“What’s the old joke? It’s a recession if your neighbour loses his job, it’s a depression if you lose yours. It’s the same thing with legal aid. People are shocked and surprised to discover that they don’t qualify.”
Once Krog had hoped to be the man who rectified that as attorney general. But since being elected mayor in October, now it isn’t his problem.
“Being mayor is a lot of fun, actually,” he assured. “I work with a really good council: They are a bright group, they read the material, they pay attention, they think, they discuss, they debate, they disagree, they vote, they move on. There is no personal acrimony. People are very careful to be respectful of one another, to staff, to the public. It’s great.”