Legal Aid Service Delivery in Rural and Remote Communities across Canada: Issues and Perspectives in the Context of COVID-19

Part D: Description of the Impacts of COVID-19

This section outlines interviewees’ perspectives on the impact of the pandemic in terms of costs to legal aid plans and the way services have been accessed. In the spring of 2020 through to February 2022 or later, many courts were closed due to public health restrictions. In most of the southern jurisdictions, this had the impact of lessening legal aid delivery costs. In some programs, the need to help people with technology or to access a court hearing remotely either kept costs constant or increased them. In terms of social impacts, respondents in Newfoundland and Labrador stated that the enforced isolation of many individuals in remote communities further increased their sense of vulnerability resulting from the initial criminal or family matter. In remote communities, there was also a local concern that outsiders might bring COVID into their community, so at best there was an ambivalent attitude towards those trying to serve legal needs.

As public health restrictions eased and courts resumed sittings, there were significant backlogs and long dockets in small communities. These backlogs have been exacerbated by the fact that courts might only sit every six weeks or at even longer intervals. The process of circuit fly-ins has been long and tiring, and it has resulted at times in frustration on the part of lawyers that they have not been able to manage files as effectively as they would wish.

There were varied reactions about the impacts of COVID on delivery of services in the longer term. Several themes emerged:

  • The most impacted clients were those who had lost their jobs, were cut off from their family, were isolated generally, were of an older generation, and/or who are technologically challenged. They are the ones who are most dependent on in-person contacts in all phases of a case. It is these people who may have no technological hardware and who have the most trouble with online application systems, payment of court costs online (e.g., filing fees), or processes that are now conducted completely online (e.g., the Landlord and Tenant Board in Ontario).
  • Many people with legal needs appear to be comfortable with connecting over the phone. However, having only one communication method does not help all types of clients. For example, the telephone may not be the preferred mode for persons with learning disabilities. These individuals may be able to get help more easily with in-person filing procedures and may more easily be able to follow and interact during in-person hearings. In addition, in one jurisdiction where tenancy disputes are handled only by telephone, there have been reports of problems where individuals have run out of minutes, or have had a change of telephone number that they have not reported, or who use a free telephone app. In these cases, they may not have received notice of the hearing, and subsequently had default orders against them because they did not attend the hearing.
  • Video-conferencing platforms like Zoom often require more discipline on the part of the client than a regular face-to-face meeting. Clients who have the technological knowledge to access these platforms also are often better resourced when using it (e.g., compared with a walk-in client), because information they require is often on their laptop and can easily be retrieved if needed in the online meeting.
  • In many cases even people who can afford a cellular phone with access to the Internet may not be able to dial into a remote court hearing because of unreliable technological connections.
  • In summary, the pandemic forced the legal system and clients to make technological adjustments in order to have their cases go forward. Some of these procedures already constitute “the new norm.” Other processes that proceeded with technology during the pandemic may revert to in-person processes. However, to the degree that the use of technology becomes more common for certain stages of legal proceedings, careful consideration needs to be made for persons in rural and remote locations who lack comfort, experience and/or equipment that would enable them to pursue a legal case using technology.