ONTARIO ELECTION 2022

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The NDP were the first party to have released their Election 2022 Platform. Copied below are their commitments in the area of Access to Justice. 

ACCESS TO JUSTICE: CLIMATE, JOBS, JUSTICE: THE GREEN NEW DEMOCRATIC DEAL (Chapter 6)

Everyone in Ontario deserves equal access to justice. Years of Liberal and Conservative underfunding and cuts have caused a major court case backlog that ballooned to more than 60,000 cases during the pandemic. Doug Ford’s reckless cut to Legal Aid by one third has made it harder for many Ontarians to access justice. Ontario’s tribunals are facing unprecedented delays and barriers to access, and Ontarians have lost confidence in the Ford Conservatives’ appointment process.

• Reverse Doug Ford’s cuts to Legal Aid and start fixing the inadequacies of Ontario’s legal aid system. We’ll increase funding for summary legal advice, unbundled legal services, and public interest litigation, and ensure more people qualify for legal assistance. We’ll work with Legal Aid to provide appropriate supports.
• Increase resources for criminal diversion programs and dedicated diversion courts to ensure people with mental health and addiction issues, as well as young and underhoused people, are not caught in a self-perpetuating cycle of criminality.
• Fix Ontario’s broken tribunal system. We’ll create an independent Adjudicative Tribunal Justice Council to ensure tribunals are fully staffed with impartial expert adjudicators and vacancies are filled in a timely manner.

Unfortunately, the document itself contains no financial tables, so the magnitude of the commitments remains unknown. During the press conference, Andrea Horwath stated that the party will release the financial costing once the provincial budget has been released and they have had the opportunity to adjust their plan based on the province’s projections. 

The Liberal Party of Ontario released their platform on May 11, 2022.  Copied below are their commitments in the area of Access to Justice.  

AN ONTARIO THAT WORKS FOR EVERYONE 

Better, fairer systems that serve everyone

Ontario Liberals will: 

• Ban handguns from Ontario 

• Divert people with addictions, disabilities and mental health conditions away from the justice system and to appropriate supports 

• Ensure police training includes de-escalation, anti-racism, cultural sensitivity and mental health 

• Hire more diverse and underrepresented police officers 

• Fund body camera programs for police 

Ontarians need to feel safe in their communities – and handguns are disproportionately killing people more than any other type of firearm. We’ll work with the federal government to ban the sale, possession, transport and storage of handguns in Ontario while we advocate for a national ban, and work to take these dangerous guns off our streets through a buy-back program. Existing professional exemptions to carry registered firearms, such as for police, military and trappers, will remain in place. The Ontario Liberal plan will also treat gun violence as a public health issue and fund trauma counselling for survivors and others affected by gun violence. 

In an emergency or conflict, police are often the first call – even though the situation doesn’t always call for police intervention. We’ll ensure more mental health workers are ready to respond to low-risk emergency calls to identify and divert people with addictions and disabilities from the justice system, directing them to more appropriate services. We’ll do this by investing in mental health first responders and the OPP Crisis Call Diversion Program, as well as provide greater access to social workers for those leaving correctional facilities. 

Police services must also be responsive to the changing needs of the communities they serve and ensure everyone feels safe. We’ll require that all police training contains appropriate content regarding de-escalation, anti-racism, cultural sensitivity and engaging with individuals experiencing mental health conditions – and provide funding to police forces to deploy body cameras. To make sure police look like the communities they serve, we’ll support training and hiring more diverse police officers, such as expanding the Youth in Policing Initiative – and we’ll require police services to disclose annual statistics regarding the diversity of their officers, leadership and police service boards.

Improve legal aid, child welfare and other justice services 

Ontario Liberals will: 

• Reverse cuts to legal aid that deny marginalized Ontarians of representation and justice 

• Make the child welfare system more responsive and sensitive 

• Fight human trafficking 

We’ll reverse the Ford Conservatives’ devastating cuts to legal aid and Ontario’s tribunal system that have resulted in marginalized Ontarians being denied legal representation and justice – working to innovate the system so it is less costly, more accessible and more efficient. We’ll also make the child welfare system more responsive, flexible and sensitive to the needs of diverse communities, including more placement options and programs to support completing education. We’ll also increase support to prevent human trafficking through training in schools, support for trafficking survivors and bringing traffickers to justice.