Press Release
The Provincial budget of April 11, 2019, calls for significant cuts to Legal Aid funding in Ontario. If these cuts are of the reported magnitude of 30%, it could result in a serious reduction in front-line local community legal services in the County of Northumberland, impacting the most vulnerable among us.
Legal Aid Ontario funds 72 community legal clinics across the province. The work that legal clinics do is aimed at ensuring that people with low incomes are able to meet their most basic needs, which in turn gives them the ability to live with health and dignity as active members of their communities.
A cut of this size would substantially decrease the services that legal clinics can provide to their communities. Northumberland Community Legal Centre provides legal advice and representation as well as legal education and information to the low-income residents of Northumberland County.
NCLC is governed by a volunteer board of directors drawn from the local community. Our legal work focusses on issues that are most critical to our clients including housing, income security, disability programs, employment and workers’ rights, victim’s assistance, and worker’s compensation.
All of these areas of law are complex and daunting for an unrepresented person to tackle, and a client often presents with multiple interrelated issues. By advising and representing the most vulnerable citizens in our community, we help to preserve the basic essentials of life, keeping food on their tables and a roof over their heads.
“We are calling on the Attorney General, Caroline Mulroney to make a commitment to access to justice, and to respect the commitment of her government to not decrease front line services, and to confirm that funding for community clinics will not be decreased” said Lenny Abramowicz, the Executive Director of the Association of Community Legal Clinics of Ontario.
“We don’t yet know how this apparent cut will affect our local clinic. We will work with our community as the impact on our services becomes known” said Lois Cromarty, Executive Director of the Northumberland Community Legal Centre.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
