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1 Legal Aid Ontario Transcript of CBC Radio One interview Description: Interview of John McCamus and Fallon Melander on CBC Radio One Date: November 20, 2013 Start of recorded material Here on CBC Radio One, it s Wednesday the 20 th of November. Well as you ve been hearing, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation Justice Summit is underway in Thunder Bay right now. Yesterday we heard why NAN wants to change the way justice is delivered in its communities. It says the current system is failing them. Well John McCamus is Chair of Legal Aid Ontario, the organization that funds NAN Legal Services. He ll be speaking at the summit today. And he s here this morning to talk about legal aid s role in responding to the problems facing First Nation communities. Joining him, Fallon Melander, who is Policy Counsel for Legal Aid Ontario, so Fallon Melander, John McCamus, good morning to you both. Thank you for coming in. Most welcome, my pleasure. If I can ask you, Mr. McCamus, first, yesterday we heard a lot about why NAN is concerned about how justice is served in First Nation Ontario I guess. Where does legal aid fit into that? What role do you play? Well legal aid provides funding for essentially lawyers who do legal representation for people charged with criminal offences, people with family law problems, and in other contexts. Clinics provide poverty law services. We want to strengthen our capacity to provide good, high quality service in all of these areas, and in particular increase the amount of poverty law work that s done by people we fund for the Aboriginal community and to work with our partners up north to try and strengthen what we re doing here. Now Fallon, if I can ask you a little bit this morning, I know that there s an Aboriginal justice strategy, can you tell me more about that? Where does that fit in this framework? 1 Legal Aid Ontario: Transcript of interview of John McCamus and Fallon Melander on CBC Radio One

2 Sure, we started an Aboriginal justice strategy in 2008, really was to look at what we re doing for our Aboriginal clients and communities and to strengthen our services for them. So in the first five years of the strategy, we looked at internally what we were doing to make sure our lawyers, and our staff in our clinics were competent in services and knew about the Aboriginal communities they were serving. Going forward, we have renewed the strategy for another five years. We re looking at really what are we doing within the communities, how are we delivering the services and what do the communities want for their justice system. How do you find out, because I m just starting to think here now, like we ve got such far flung, such remote communities here in Northern Ontario. In Southern Ontario, there s much more of an urban setting, so how do you make a strategy to fit that range of people? Yes, that s definitely a difficulty that we ve found in the first five years is Ontario is so different across every community, whether, you know, there s Southern Ontario, Northern Ontario or they re next door to each other, has different issues and different problems and different ways to deal with them. What we ve found is working locally with the community and talking to the community about what their needs are, what their wants are and what they want to do and what services are best provided and how is really the way that we re going, so looking locally and building that capacity and providing services that are meaningful to that community. So thinking, Mr. McCamus, about the remoteness of some of our communities and if somebody were having legal problems if they lived in a place like Pikangikum or [Nushghandiga?], how does legal aid even find out about them, reach them, find out what they need? Well we work essentially by providing funding to our partners in the north, not just here Treaty Nine area, but Treaty Three as well and of course across the province. But of course it s very challenging. And the recent report of Mr. Justice Bode on the fly in courts has suggested that we all try to make more effective use of technology to communicate ahead of court dates with clients, improve the quality of our service by trying to harness technological means of communication for example. But it has been very difficult. NAN Legal s done a wonderful job of reaching out to these communities, but they are always wanting to improve and we re wanting to help them do that. 2 Legal Aid Ontario: Transcript of interview of John McCamus and Fallon Melander on CBC Radio One

3 So now, like the premise of this gathering right now that you re here with the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, this justice summit is to somehow take more ownership of the justice system in terms of being able to craft a system that works. Where does legal aid-, works for them-, where does legal aid fit in there? I m going to ask Fallon that. Sure, I ll take that. We need to partner. We need to work with the communities. We need to have better communication on what the needs are and actually address those needs. We have a lot of staff that are on the ground that are working closely with the Aboriginal community or working with NAN Legal and I think just building relationships, building better relationships to get things done. You know, throughout the conference yesterday, they spoke a lot about how reports and commissions and inquiries have been drafted and put forward, and there s been a lot of talk, but actually to act and move forward with addressing the issues that are deep rooted and have been around for a very long time. One of the issues that s of concern right now, and we heard a little bit-, we talked about it yesterday and we touched on it briefly this morning as well, the Gladue reports where we only have one person at the Indian Friendship Centre here charged with preparing those reports, we know that they are done as well by probation officers and things like that, but where does legal aid fit there? I mean is that a concern? Of course it s a concern. I mean legal aid s principal role in the Gladue context is to fund counsel who make Gladue submissions at appropriate points in the criminal proceedings. But of course Gladue reports have to be written as well and that s the problem you re adverting to? Mhm. And again, we want to support NAN Legal as best we can in increasing the capacity to write these reports. It s a problem not just here in Treaty Nine area, but it s a problem throughout the province. We do have a group working effectively in Toronto on Gladue writing at the Aboriginal Legal Services Clinic in Toronto. We need to spread out across the province this kind of service more effectively. Fallon, you were listening yesterday. What stood out for you yesterday in terms of the first day of this summit? What did you learn? It definitely, I think just to start off, was amazing to have such a different mix of people at a summit like this. It wasn t just lawyers or judges or, you know, chiefs in counsel. It was actually community members, legal workers, people who are on the ground and 3 Legal Aid Ontario: Transcript of interview of John McCamus and Fallon Melander on CBC Radio One

4 who have different insights and views into what is working and what is not, most importantly what s not working, so I think just listening to people and hearing the real issues that are affecting the communities and their members and coming up with solutions, so I m really excited for the next two days to get some more feedback and to come up with ways to make changes. Now Mr. McCamus, are you here to listen or are you here to talk? Well I m principally here to listen and learn. You know, for folks like me from Southern Ontario, we don t know as much about the north as we should, and it s a wonderful opportunity for me to not just to hear from people, but to meet people and talk about the problems they re confronting, and think about how legal aid can improve its capacity to be supportive and work with them on their ideas about how to improve the services that we fund. Is it a matter of funding I wonder sometimes? I mean because quite often when we talk about legal aid, I know there are real issues in terms of financing that there could be more if there were more money. Absolutely. We have very generous support from the provincial government and we re grateful for that. And from time to time we get improvements in that support. But at the same time we do feel that the services we provide across the range of services we provide in all the areas we work in could be strengthened. We don t provide enough service to enough people. The eligibility standards for obtaining legal aid assistance are very low and they haven t changed for more than a dozen years, so that there are lots of needs that we re not meeting. And more resources would be extremely helpful obviously in enabling us to do that. And I think that s what NAN is saying as well, the system is falling short in terms of providing the help that they need. Thank you so much for coming in. It s been nice talking to you both. Thank you. You re very welcome. I ve been speaking with Fallon Melander. She is the Policy Counsel for Legal Aid Ontario. John McCamus is the Head of Legal Aid Ontario. And they re both here to participate in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation Justice Summit. 4 Legal Aid Ontario: Transcript of interview of John McCamus and Fallon Melander on CBC Radio One

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