New legal aid agreement reached
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on September 5, 2024.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com The provincial government has finalized a new long-term agreement with Legal Aid and the Law Society of Alberta.The three have signed a new five-year governance agreement which comes into effect today and runs until Sept. 5, 2029.
“By signing this agreement, all involved have committed to ensuring Alberta’s legal aid system remains stable and continues to meet the needs of those who require legal assistance. The new agreement underscores the Alberta government’s commitment to ensuring access to justice for Albertans, recognizing that legal aid is an important service for many Albertans who face financial barriers in accessing legal supports,” said the province on Wednesday.
The province says it will continue to work with and consult Legal Aid Alberta, the Law Society of Alberta and other members of the justice system to ensure decisions on the future direction of legal services are data driven and guided by the legal needs of vulnerable residents.
The province also says it’s committed to the continuity of legal aid services, funding and working with its partners.
Legal Aid’s grant from the province for 2024-25 is budgeted at $110 million.
On July 5, an agreement was reached to extend the expired governance agreement until Wednesday.
In a July media statement on its website, Legal Aid Alberta said the extension would allow the three parties to finalize the negotiation of a new agreement to provide for a long-term and independent legal aid program in in the province.
On July 3, Minister of Justice Mickey Amery had issued a statement saying that over the past nine years funding for legal aid by the Alberta government had almost doubled from $66 million in the 2015 budget to $110 million in this year’s budget with expenditures expected to be more than $138 million in 2024. He called the funding growth unsustainable.
In a release Thursday, the minister called legal aid services “a shared commitment, and one that all the groups involved take very seriously. Our goal is to ensure the sustainability and fiscal accountability of legal aid for all Albertans now and into the future, and this new agreement puts us on the right track.”
The Herald was told earlier this summer by the president of the Southern Alberta Defence Lawyers Association Greg White that if the situation hadn’t been fixed before yesterday some Alberta lawyers could have lost their livelihoods. 3
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