Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m J U L Y 2 0 1 7 11 "speed up the system," but he points out "that the assurance would have to be there that the paralegal can effectively represent someone." There are no hard deadlines about when Saskatchewan's Legal Services Task Team will release a report, but a rough timeline of one year has been set. Manitoba will be watching the results of Saskatchewan's investigations. The Manitoba Law Society is itself planning its own president's special commission report on alternate legal services provid- ers. The law society's CEO, Kristin Dan- gerfield, acknowledges that "there is no doubt there is a huge unmet legal need out there that has to be addressed." She points out that "the reality is there are a number of legal services from which the public could benefit that are not being delivered by lawyers in any event." Dangerfield says the Manitoba commit- tee will explore alternate legal services. She says she has been told by family law prac- titioners that "there are many members of the public who simply cannot access a law- yer but nonetheless urgently require some assistance. We'll have to see what we hear from the profession next year." Meanwhile, in Ontario, a report released earlier this year recommends that paralegals be permitted much more freedom to operate in that province's family courts. The author of the report, former Ontario Court chief justice Annemarie Bonkalo, found Ontario's family court system was facing a crisis, clogged with self-represented litigants unable to afford a lawyer. She called for loosening the restraints on paralegals in family matters, though she acknowl- edged such a proposal was contentious. And her report did draw almost immediate fire and some of it from Ontario judges themselves, some of whom said increased legal aid funding was vastly better than permitting parale- gals access to family courts. The Law Society of Alberta has already looked at access issues. It's executive director, Don Thompson, says in its 2010-2013 Strategic Plan that the law society "did explore whether legal services provided by non-lawyers could have an impact on improving access to the justice system for Albertans." However, there has been no change in the legal statutes of paralegals in the province, though traffic agents can appear in some Alberta courts. Thomp- son acknowledges that access to justice issues remain, but he cautiously says that something the LSA continues to look for "is a demonstration that there is a clear relationship between having non-lawyers (or paralegals) deliver legal services and the public being able to access justice more easily." Thompson says, "There is no instant solution to the access to justice issue [and] we continue to observe what is happening in other jurisdictions includ- ing British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario." — GEOFF ELLWAND \ AT L A N T I C \ C E N T R A L \ P R A I R I E S \ W E S T REGIONAL WRAP-UP MORE PRECISE SEARCHES. MORE RELEVANT RESULTS. Lexis Advance ® Quicklaw ® Now with advanced search forms for precision searching lexisnexis.ca/advance ntitled-3 1 2017-06-14 3:03 PM

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