Thank you very much, honourable chair and honourable members. It's a pleasure to be before you today. Thank you very much for the invitation to the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers.
It's a pleasure to appear before you today and to assist you with respect to this very important topic. I've been a criminal defence lawyer for over 21 years. I've had conduct of trials and appeals in all levels of court in Yukon and in British Columbia, and I've appeared in the Supreme Court of Canada. I've appeared in 14 different supreme courts in British Columbia, and 36 provincial courts. Many of my cases have been funded by legal aid, managed by the Legal Services Society in British Columbia. I have about eight minutes to summarize my 21 years of experience with legal aid.
We live in a society governed by one pre-eminent constitutional principle, the rule of law, and yet very few members of society have the ability to hire a lawyer to help them understand the laws that govern all of us. There are many thousands of offences, not just under the Criminal Code but many other federal statutes and provincial statutes, and of course thousands of regulations and municipal bylaws. The people who pass our laws and create almost innumerable offences appear to put very little thought into how citizens can possibly expect to understand and defend themselves if they are ever charged with an offence. For example, in British Columbia, we modernized the family law and allocated no resources for legal aid, so 30% to 40% of family cases in the Supreme Court of British Columbia involve unrepresented litigants and all of the attendant costs in court for judges when these individuals appear without lawyers.
Many eminent individuals and organizations have studied legal aid or aspects of the justice system and commented on the necessity of proper provision of legal aid. In a report commissioned by the Law Society of British Columbia and the CBA, Len Doust, QC, concluded that legal aid must be considered an essential service. Legal aid should not be considered an afterthought, subsidiary to the needs of health and education, but as one means by which we educate individuals and keep people and families healthy. For many people, conflict with the law is an opportunity for change. As a lawyer, I'm often the first person to advise on the need for drug rehabilitation, alcohol rehabilitation, or mental and physical health needs. I regularly direct individuals to these resources.
The proper functioning of the criminal court requires well-trained, educated judges, crown counsel, and defence counsel. The provinces, by and large, have invested in judges and the crown, but have utterly failed to invest in legal aid, the means by which defence counsel learn to become barristers and advocates. We cannot afford to mentor the next generation of defence counsel through the funding of junior counsel in court. That's the only way you can learn to be a barrister, by being junior counsel to senior counsel. Without experienced, well-trained defence lawyers, the system will continue to struggle with delay.
The Senate is currently studying delay in the justice system. I had the pleasure of addressing that committee when they appeared in Vancouver earlier in the year.
We will continue to see trials go on longer than they should. This is not just my experience, but the conclusion of the LeSage-Code report that was commissioned by the Attorney General of Ontario, and it's also consistent with the comments of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice report on mega-trials in Vancouver. Efficiency requires experienced lawyers. Studies have consistently shown, as my colleague said, that for every dollar invested in legal aid, there are economic benefits of between two to seven dollars.
This is, with respect, a non-partisan issue. The proper allocation of funds to legal aid can be supported philosophically, economically, empirically, politically, and ideologically. When I started in 1994-95, parking at the courthouse in Vancouver cost $3.50; it now costs $16. Legal aid rates haven't changed.
Society's most disadvantaged, society's poorest, our mentally ill, our impoverished, will often come into conflict with the law. How we help them at those times can be the difference between years more conflict with the law or addressing their needs and rehabilitation.
Healthy individuals equal healthy families. Healthy families equal safe communities.
Thank you very much.