3.0 Study Background and Federal Context

In the words of former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, access to justice is “the central justice issue in Canada today.” Community legal clinics are seen as a delivery model that significantly supports access to justice.

In order to better understand community legal clinics/justice centres in Canada, Justice Canada contracted Tim Roberts & Associates Consulting to conduct this research. The study was undertaken in the period January to August 2021, during which time the principal researcher worked closely with a federal advisory committee. Specifically, the project intended to answer the following questions:

The definition of a legal clinic in this study incorporates the following elements:

3.1 Federal Context

As noted in the previous section, the definition of legal clinics in this study includes the provision of information, advice and sometimes representation for key issues that relate to federal jurisdiction (but also does not preclude matters of provincial jurisdiction). By way of background, this section summarizes the key program areas delivered across the country by Justice Canada. The information is summarized or taken verbatim from the three referenced sites in the footnotes on the following page.

There are four broad federal program areas: