Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Legal Aid Concerns Lingers

Opposition critics say a promise to increase fees for legal aid lawyers does little to solve some of the key problems saddling the province's legal system.

Ontario agreed to increase the rates paid to lawyers in the cash-strapped program in a bid to end a months-long boycott that threatened to escalate over the weekend.

But New Democrat Howard Hampton says the deal doesn't address the bigger problems in Ontario's legal system, like the difficulty for people to get a legal aid certificate in the first place.

He also worries that the government will pay for budget increases_ estimated by some to become as high as $80 million _ by making it even more difficult to get those certificates.