Grants made

Pro Bono Students Canada (“PBSC”) will develop a new, national family court accompaniment project to serve unrepresented litigants in the family court system, The project will have three outputs: court accompaniment services for unrepresented litigants in family courts; public legal information sessions; and a final project report with policy and practice recommendations. This grant concludes in 2021. This grant furthers access to justice by providing much needed legal assistance to unrepresented family law litigants.

The AAJ Project will pilot a survey tool that collects information from tribunal users in Ontario regarding their experience navigating the tribunal process. The survey tool will also ask users demographic questions, including questions about race, ethnicity and Indigenous identity, in an effort to better understand the barriers faced by racialized and Indigenous tribunal users.

Luke’s Place will undertake the preliminary research for a project to examine the family court processes in Ontario in search of ways to reduce risk and improve outcomes in family law cases involving violence against women and criminal and/or child protection legal issues. Its partners in the initiative include Dr. Mavis Morton (University of Guelph), the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, and the Woman Abuse Council of Toronto. This initiative has the potential to improve access to justice, and safety, for women with intersecting legal issues who have experienced domestic violence.

The Law Society of Nunavut and Pauktuutit will conduct a research study to examine access to justice issues for Inuit survivors of family violence in Nunavut and develop a corresponding public legal education campaign to raise awareness about the legal options available for those survivors.

Community Advocacy & Legal Centre (CALC) creates a sustainable action plan to meet the unmet civil legal needs of people in conflict with the law who have been imprisoned, remanded or released from the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee. This exploratory action research project will include a civil legal needs and local capacity assessment, and CALC will collaborate with the John Howard Society, Community Legal Education Ontario and other new partners to address these needs.

Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research creates tool kits to assist Ontario parents/guardians of children with sight impairments and CNIB rehabilitation staff assists them, to successfully obtain individualized accessible home accommodations required to improve their mobility and safety in their rental units.

The Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic (BSCC) in collaboration with the Centre for Research and Education on Violence against Women and Children (CREVWC), will conduct research on and develop a partner violence risk assessment tool to help women survivors of abuse navigate the family court system. The BSCC and CREVWC will also create a training toolkit for the different stakeholders in the family courts. This grant will benefit women survivors of abuse, family law practitioners and family court staff and concludes in 2020. This grant furthers access to justice by providing legal actors with the tools to recognize gender-based violence from the moment a survivor reaches out to the family justice system.

The National Action Committee (NAC) is a national body created in 2008 to work across the justice sector on access to justice issues facing Canadians in civil and family matters. It will undertake various activities including a governance review, a strategic planning exercise, a progress report on its justice development goals, connect people across common issues through engagement activities, and develop indicators for its justice metrics. It will also hold a national meeting to bring to bring people together, share resources, and spur action. NAC is a national catalyst for reform, fostering engagement, pursuing a strategic collaborative approach to reforms, and coordinating the efforts of all participants concerned with civil and family justice.

In partnership with the Faculty of Common Law at the University of Ottawa, Julie Mathews, Executive Director of Community Legal Education Ontario, will dedicate her fellowship to focus on the challenges that are faced by community service organizations in helping people they serve who face legal problems, particularly those living on a low income or experiencing other social disadvantages, with legal problems. The Fellowship will deliver an action-oriented framework of policy and program options for supporting and enhancing the role of community service organizations as “justice partners” making an integral contribution to improving access to justice in Ontario.

The Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton (SPRCH) will work in collaboration with the Immigrant Working Centre (IWC) in the Hamilton region, to implement the Family Learning Project (FLP), a legal education initiative that intends to provide new Canadian families with knowledge and capacity around child welfare legislation and policies. The project will also provide adult education sessions about child welfare law to service providers who work with new Canadians and peer mentors in the community. This grant will benefit new Canadians, service providers and peer mentors and concludes in 2020. This grant furthers access to justice because there is a disproportionate involvement of newcomers within the child welfare system as a result of factors such as unfamiliarity with the Canadian legal system, language, and cultural barriers.

In partnership with the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society, Jean-Noé Landry, Executive Director at OpenNorth, will examine power relations in a smart city ecosystem, and in particular the role and influence of citizens. It will explore how political participation is framed, and what changes occur as a result of the introduction of various networked and urban ‘smart’ technologies, and include the development of an Open Smart Cities Guide v2.0, a series of in-depth case studies examining the different dimensions of shifting human agency in smart cities, and a workshop on smart and inclusive cities.

Research on best practices on, and implications for the use of restorative justice – FGCs among African, Black, Caribbean, Black (ABC) families engaging the child welfare system, and the design of culturally appropriate supplementary FGC curriculum content and other knowledge products on the use of ACB focused FGCs for existing and potential FGC practitioners. Working with METRAC and Black Creek Community Health Centre, the project will explore development and implementation of pilot model.

The University of Calgary, Faculty of Law (U of C) will develop a web-based research portal for litigants and their support providers in domestic violence cases that will provide accessible, plain language summaries of the laws and government policies in each jurisdiction in Canada, with related links. The portal will be developed in collaboration with domestic violence and public legal education organizations across Canada. This grant will benefit abused women and the trusted intermediaries who provide them with legal and other support and services, this grant concludes in 2018. This grant furthers access to justice by providing a comprehensive breadth of family law and plain language legal information that would assist women who are victims of violence.

Carleton University, Department of Law and Legal Studies (Carleton) is undertaking research to understand sources of conflict in child custody cases and the role of scheduling apps in particular. This grant will benefit the family law bar as a whole and concludes in 2019. This grant furthers access to justice by providing a better understanding of which issues in custody matters are the most contentious amongst separating families

In partnership with the Faculty of Common Law at the University of Ottawa, Julie Mathews, Executive Director of Community Legal Education Ontario, will dedicate her fellowship to focus on the challenges that are faced by community service organizations in helping people they serve who face legal problems, particularly those living on a low income or experiencing other social disadvantages, with legal problems. The Fellowship will deliver an action-oriented framework of policy and program options for supporting and enhancing the role of community service organizations as “justice partners” making an integral contribution to improving access to justice in Ontario.

In partnership with the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society, Jean-Noé Landry, Executive Director at OpenNorth, will examine power relations in a smart city ecosystem, and in particular the role and influence of citizens. It will explore how political participation is framed, and what changes occur as a result of the introduction of various networked and urban ‘smart’ technologies, and include the development of an Open Smart Cities Guide v2.0, a series of in-depth case studies examining the different dimensions of shifting human agency in smart cities, and a workshop on smart and inclusive cities.

Volunteer legal clinic services and internet resource for families dealing with separation in order to ensure emphasis on the best interests of the child.

METRAC will build the capacity of individuals, communities and organizations to effectively assist the most marginalized women and youth facing violence and in need of legal information. Program activities include providing legal education and information in clear language on a range of topics for service providers and producing and disseminating regionally targeted and multilingual legal information resources sensitive to the diverse experiences and realities of women.

The Law Commission of Ontario will continue to make recommendations to: make the legal system more relevant, accessible and efficient; simplify or clarify the law; use technology to increase access to justice; stimulate critical debate about law; and, promote scholarly legal research.

The Edmonton Community Legal Centre (ECLC) will provide family law legal advice appointments to low income Northern Albertans, with assistance from Edmonton pro bono family law lawyers and various technologies (Skype, Facetime, WhatsApp, etc) such that people are served in their own communities. Outcome evaluation will also be conducted to determine the effectiveness of each type of technology as well as client outcome and levels of satisfaction. This grant will benefit Northern Albertans and concludes in 2022. This grant furthers access to justice by providing access to family law services to those living in Northern Alberta, which is largely an underserved region.

Community Legal Education Ontario will continue to house the Connecting Communities Secretariat to coordinate and support the activities of legal and non-legal organizations working to improve access to justice. It facilitates legal information training for front line workers in communities that are not proficient in English or French and in rural and remote communities. The project also strengthens linkages between legal and community workers in Ontario and is part of the Foundation’s strategic focus on the training of trusted intermediaries.

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) will inform Canadian Muslim women of their legal rights under Canadian family law. The CCMW will conduct a national survey, outreach strategy, knowledge sharing workshops, and webinars in both English and French. CCMW, through its local chapters, will be the conduit to provide knowledge sharing workshops in their local communities to Muslim women. This grant will conclude in 2020. This grant furthers access to justice in the lives of Muslim women in Canada by having increased knowledge and understanding of their rights under the Canadian legal system.

The AJEFO will develop a three-day French-language family law training course. This course will be offered to parties who work with immigrants and Francophone immigrants in Ontario. La Passerelle-I.D.É. will assist with the cultural adaptation of the training course content. The training will be delivered in Ottawa, Toronto, and Hamilton.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) and the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) is for a project aimed at revitalizing and codifying First Nation law relating to families and children with a focus on child protection. A digital library will be created to ensure the laws and information obtained from the activities can be used for educational purposes. This grant will benefit First Nations families and children, particularly children in the child welfare system and concludes in 2020. This grant furthers access to justice by providing an independent and community controlled process to revitalize and codify First Nations laws as a way to reform the child welfare system in Manitoba.

Organize a two-day symposium to bring French speaking professionals together to discuss topics related to violence toward women and family law in order to increase access to justice for Francophone women who experience violence in Ontario. Attendees will come from sectors that deal with VAW, including the legal sector, children’s aid, education, health policy, and immigration sectors.

Pro Bono Students Canada will continue to provide practical learning experiences for law students and free legal information and services to Canadian organizations and individuals in need.

OJEN will carry out programs that facilitate and support broad-based activity by the judiciary, the bar, the courts, and the education community throughout Ontario, with a primary focus on students and the strengthening of links between the justice and education communities. It will enhance existing high school mock trial competitions and deliver Law Day activities that are designed to develop awareness of the legal profession, the judicial system, and the rule of law in Canada.

The Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation will hold a one-day consultation and training session with service providers, housing specialists, and tenants who have experienced environmental sensitivity issues in rental housing. Following the in-person session, a webinar and toolkit will be developed focussing on the benefits of using a human rights approach to resolve issues experienced by individuals with ES+. The project’s partners include the Environmental Health Institute of Canada (EHICanada) and the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA). The project supports access to justice in rural and remote areas through the training of trusted intermediaries.

Aspire will scale up its services as a family law incubator which makes use of technology, trains young lawyers, and shares best practices with other legal professionals.

The National Self-Represented Litigant Project (NSRLP) based at the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law will partner with libraries in the Windsor and Essex County areas to provide support, workspace, custom-made resources, and educational programming for family self-represented litigants (SRLs). This grant will benefit both library staff and SRLs and concludes in 2020. This grant will further access to justice by better equipping public libraries to better serve SRLs with family law needs, this pilot project would be able to provide access to legal information for people, particularly litigants with limited resources, other vulnerabilities and needs.

This initiative will mobilize and educate lawyers across Ontario in the use of unbundled family law legal services and legal coaching, pilot a program in Barrie that provides private duty counsel services, establish a roster of trained lawyers, develop information for the public, and undertake an evaluation of all aforementioned services. The project will be overseen by a steering committee made up of representatives from the Ontario Court of Justice, the Family Lawyers Association, Legal Aid Ontario, and the Academy among many others. The purpose of the project is to increase access to these types of services to allow those who are unable to afford (or not prepared to pay for) traditional full legal representation to have improved access to family justice. The proposed research study will be the first comprehensive study of the value and limitations of limited scope services to date.

Connecting Ottawa will continue to coordinate a consortium of over 40 legal and non-legal organizations to implement a regional plan to provide legal information and referrals to people who are not proficient in English or French or who face communication challenges as the result of a disability or sensory impairment. Established to fulfil a recommendation in the “Connecting Across Language and Distance: Linguistic and Rural Access to Legal Information and Services” report commissioned by the Foundation, the initiative also strengthens linkages between legal and community workers in Ontario and is part of the Foundation’s strategic focus on the training and support of trusted intermediaries.

CLEO will develop and implement a French version of family law content on its Steps to Justice website. The Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG), a major project partner, funded the translation of the initial website content for family, housing, and employment law into French. This will allow for the production of further French family law material.

The ACCT will run a culturally sensitive campaign promoting legal awareness of Canadian family law for Arabic-speaking newcomers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Based on focus group discussions with members of the community, short educational videos in Arabic will be created and shared on social media.

AJEFO will organize and lead “Journée du droit” (Law Day) activities aimed at Francophone high school students in five different regions of the province. Interactive workshops provide information about careers in the justice sector, the required education and the advantages to pursuing that education in French, and education about legal rights and the Canadian justice system.

CCLET will conduct in-class seminars, workshops, and lectures to students in elementary and high schools and to pre-service teachers in faculties of education across Ontario via two programs: Teaching Civil Liberties and Civil Liberties in the Schools. The focus is on engaging students in critical thinking and respectful debate about rights and freedoms.

The Elizabeth Fry Society of Northwestern Ontario will carry out research on the criminalization of women who are homeless or housing-insecure. By conducting focus groups and engaging women with lived experience, the research will assess the extent to which housing insecurity and homelessness leads to criminal justice system involvement, with particular attention to the experiences of Indigenous women. In addition, the study will identify gender-specific and culturally relevant needs pertaining to housing, social, mental health and legal supports for women involved with the criminal justice system.

Innocence Canada will continue to coordinate and administer its pro bono program, which reviews and assesses claims of innocence.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The Action Group on Access to Justice (TAG) will bring together institutional, political and community justice system stakeholders throughout Ontario and build the infrastructure for collaboration, cross-sector innovation, and coordinated solutions to the access to justice problem.

LAWS’ Summer Job Program places students in paid four-week jobs with law firms, government legal departments, corporate legal divisions, and public interest organizations. The grant enables LAWS to place students in positions with legal aid clinics and public interest organizations and provides unique opportunities for students to learn about public law and access to justice, observe the legal aid system, and interact directly with community members.

National Farmers Union – Ontario (NFU-O) will adapt Young Agrarians legal tools and educational materials used to facilitate farmland access in British Columbia to the Ontario context. As part of this project NFU-O will engage small-scale, new, and young farmers in Ontario to identify additional areas of concern where legal supports are needed.

The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History will study and promote public interest in the history of the law, the legal profession, and the judiciary in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.

2018 Special Grant

Pro Bono Ontario will continue to create and manage programs that connect volunteer lawyers with low-income Ontarians, either directly or in partnership with charitable organizations working in local communities.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

Romero House, on behalf of the Redress for Roma Refugees Coalition, will hire an outreach worker to educate former Romani refugee claimants about redress mechanisms relating to a unique set of circumstances.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The Women’s Centre of Halton will establish and run a weekly pro bono family law legal clinic in Milton, Ontario.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

HDC will conduct a series of eight workshops with frontline workers and community leaders to provide training on the legal and human rights challenges that immigrant Latino Hispanic seniors face.

LAWS is a partnership between the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, and the Toronto District School Board that delivers a law and justice-themed academic and extra-curricular high school program designed to teach students about law and justice, support them to graduate from high school, access post-secondary education, and consider careers in the justice sector.

The NLC will carry out research and educational activities on issues in Aboriginal and constitutional law. It also maintains an online database of legal pleadings in cases of interest to practitioners of Aboriginal law and publishes resources on developments in Aboriginal law with a focus on Aboriginal concepts of justice.

Reach will expand its legal referral services to assist a larger number of people with disabilities, including French-speaking clients, by recruiting more lawyers and mediators from communities surrounding Ottawa and by connecting with community service organizations to increase their awareness of these free services.

Arts in Transformative Justice is a two-year project that will focus on increasing the legal capacity of ‘hard to reach’ youth by building their knowledge and understanding of legal rights of people who are homeless. Arts in Transformative Justice will recruit and train youth to provide legal information and peer-education to homeless and street involved youth through an accessible multi-arts framework.

BLSA Canada will put on its annual conference to promote professional development, legal education, mentorship, cultural awareness, and access to justice.

This project aims to proactively prevent evictions by providing legal education to those who live in or run rooming houses in the Parkdale area of Toronto (both licensed and unlicensed), ensuring they understand their rights as tenants or obligations as landlords.

WAC will develop and implement a comprehensive public education strategy on the significant changes to Ontario’s employment and labour laws that were passed by the provincial government in 2017.

CHALN will document and educate the public about the impact of law enforcement practices, such as the enforcement provisions contained in the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (2014), on the health and safety of sex workers and their ability to access medical care and social services. Affidavits with first-hand testimonials from sex workers in several cities, as well as other key informant interviews, will be collected and used to produce educational resources including a report, info sheets, and a short video which will be disseminated and promoted at a public forum and in a peer-reviewed journal.

CBIB will develop a variety of resources including guides, fact sheets, and training workshops to provide the sight loss community with the tools to navigate the Ontario legal system and challenge discrimination through legal channels.

CLEO’s Centre for Research and Innovation will conduct research, facilitate partnerships, and develop projects to help build the capacity of CLEO and other community organizations to reach marginalized communities with the legal information and education they need to understand their legal rights.

CASSA will develop and disseminate a legal toolkit and hold four legal information workshops (two in the GTA and two in Waterloo) for refugee youth.

FCJ Refugee Centre will provide clinics at refugee-serving organizations across the GTA and in London to train staff at those organizations to better help refugees through the refugee determination and other processes.

La Passerelle-I.D.É train young Francophone racialized immigrants to improve access to justice and hold a justice career fair for young Francophone racialized immigrants.

BCAAFC will hire a Provincial Indigenous child welfare training advocate who will train to community frontline workers to better support Indigenous families that come into contact with the child welfare system in BC. This training will be delivered to staff of the 25 Friendship Centres in BC.

The grantee will evaluate an ongoing pilot project by the Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench that requires early intervention case conferences in family law matters so that the court can reduce interim applications, reduce the number of files requiring case management, and ensure trials occur within a reasonable period of time. This grant will determine whether the pilot project is meeting its stated goals, using a multi-component research design.

Community Legal Education Ontario will continue to develop the Your Legal Rights site, which serves as the central hub for all public legal education and information (PLEI) in Ontario. It will also establish best practices and tools for online PLEI work and continue to develop content for the Steps to Justice site, an interactive, step-by-step site that gives comprehensive online information about common legal problems that people experience in family, housing, employment, and other areas of law.

FST will conduct a gap analysis to find out why valuable training and resources now available to trusted intermediaries (social service workers) who prepare domestic violence survivors to work with family court lawyers as well as trauma training now available to family court lawyers is not consistently improving outcomes for clients. Research data may identify training improvements or other solutions that can be introduced to improve outcomes for all parties involved.

ILRU will assist local lawmaking, law-acting, and law-thinking, through the articulation of Anishinaabe legal principles and processes that inform essential constitutional and governance concepts such as citizenship, rights and freedoms, consent, authority, and civility. The project will benefit partner Indigenous communities in revitalizing their Indigenous legal traditions.

The NLC will hire a research officer who will train Saskatchewan justice workers on Gladue factors, including writing and understanding Gladue reports. The project will facilitate a knowledge-sharing program for justice stakeholders in Saskatchewan, including judges, defence lawyers, Crown attorneys, and court workers. It will take place over twelve months, during which time approximately 27 seminars will be held at 16 locations throughout the province.

PEIPCS will train family dispute resolution professionals on how to screen for family violence and power imbalances in parenting coordination matters that come before them. The two-day workshop will be aimed at legal and mental health professionals in both the public and private spheres and will improve outcomes for families involved in the court system.

REACH will host legal clinics and PLE sessions in housing, employment, health, and social benefits law for disabled youth and young adults who are in and transitioning from child protection services. In addition, REACH will liaise with youth protection and support organizations to raise awareness about its services and facilitate contact and communication with this vulnerable population.

RACE will hire a legal director who will develop RACE’s organizational capacity to deliver legal education seminars. Activities include developing a legal database of caselaw that focuses on race issues, developing a FOI resource bank for lawyers, and developing continuing legal education workshops for legal professionals. This project will benefit vulnerable racialized accused persons and criminal lawyers in Toronto by exploring the barriers to justice faced by racialized accused.

The Second Chance Scholarship Foundation will provide a post-secondary education scholarship to a youth enrolled in a program relating to legal education who is currently, or has been, involved in the criminal justice system or who is at risk of such.

SCAE will develop and deliver workshops detailing key aspects of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The focus of the project will be on encouraging youth to educate themselves about the justice system and providing useful tools on how racialized youth should conduct themselves when interacting with the law.

UOI will create a booklet that will build awareness around rights and obligations of Indigenous families involved in child protection proceedings. This booklet will be disseminated to UOI community members and will help those navigating CFSA proceedings.

UOI will bring together Anishinabek Nation communities to share knowledge, identify traditional Anishinabek legal practices and systems, and explore how these practices and systems can be implemented in modern Indigenous communities. The project will revitalize Indigenous legal traditions and will inform future Anishinabek Nation justice initiatives in governance, education, child welfare, policing, and matrimonial real property.

The NSRLP will create a caselaw database to support self-represented litigants (SRLs). The database will compile, code, and analyze emerging jurisprudence relating to SRLs and cost awards, procedural fairness, ‘vexatious litigants’, and requests for accommodations. This project will help SRLs advocate for themselves in family law proceedings by providing them with accessible, organized legal precedents that can assist them.

The Access to Justice Centre for Excellence (ACE) will develop and apply a tool for generating useable data about the real costs of family disputes beyond court and legal fees. The tool will combine typical costs incurred by a family law litigant with census data and user interviews to develop 8-10 personas of family court users. The project will advance policy development, reform efforts, and public understanding of access to justice in the family context by providing a missing piece of the data to understand and respond to the crisis in accessibility in family law.

Bearskin Lake will continue to implement and improve the cost-effectiveness of its ‘First Nation By-Law Relating to Intoxicants #2010-01’ project.

Innocence Canada will continue to coordinate and administer its pro bono program, which reviews and assesses claims of innocence.

CHALN will produce and disseminate a public legal education resource that will reduce a key barrier to emergency health services by popularizing knowledge of the new Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act. The law protects individuals from being charged with an offense if they contact emergency assistance when someone overdoses.

Ecojustice will update and revise its 2007 report entitled, “Exposing Canada’s Chemical Valley”. The report is an investigation of the effects of cumulative air pollution in Sarnia and is an important go-to document for environmental non-governmental organizations, academics and government.

This project seeks to improve access to legal information for frontline workers supporting refugees and other vulnerable migrants by developing written legal information resources, developing a searchable/user-friendly online platform, and providing online and in person legal information workshops.

An empirical research project to better understand how the Ontario Small Claims court may assist or impede access to justice. 

The Afghan Women’s Organization will deliver legal information workshops to newcomers in Mississauga on laws that affect their everyday lives and on where and how to seek legal assistance.

The Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution will expand on activities funded through a previous grant to use “design thinking” to explore how technology might be used to implement the recommendations found in the “Feathers of Hope Justice & Juries: A First Nations Youth Action Plan for Justice” report.

This project will support newcomer youth and their families as they navigate the youth criminal justice system, while providing wrap-around support to the justice-engaged youth. The project will focus on newcomer youth and families living in high priority neighbourhoods.

The CQDE will develop a free online archive of plain language legal information on environmental law, including a guide to the Environmental Quality Act, the cornerstone legislation for environmental law in Quebec. The project will also provide structured internships for law students.

In partnership with the Comité d’action de Parc-Extension, MELC will offer pro-bono legal services to individuals and nonprofit organizations in the Park Extension neighbourhood in Montreal through a community legal clinic staffed by law students from McGill University and the Université de Montréal.

Éducaloi will create a distribution platform to serve as a hub for legal education resources, consolidate a network of legal information providers, and create a legal training session for high school teachers.

METRAC will build the capacity of individuals, communities and organizations to effectively assist the most marginalized women and youth facing violence and in need of legal information. Program activities include providing legal education and information in clear language on a range of topics for service providers and producing and disseminating regionally targeted and multilingual legal information resources sensitive to the diverse experiences and realities of women.

The proposed program will provide legal education, information, and advice to youth. It will also create connections between relevant stakeholders in the youth criminal justice system, improve access to justice for youth, and ensure that the principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act are being met. 

Pro Bono Ontario will evaluate Law Help Ontario’s services provided at Small Claims Court.

Éducaloi will create legal education workshops as well as web articles and a printed guide to help young mothers develop the knowledge and skills they need to identify and manage legal issues that arise in their day-to-day lives.

The AJEFO will develop four legal information sessions in French for four low-income or marginalized groups in Ontario: seniors, newcomers, women victims of spousal violence, and LGBTQUIA communities. Potential topics include wills, powers of attorney, Canadian criminal law, family law, and human rights. The sessions will also be recorded and posted online in webinar format.

Ryerson’s Legal Innovation Zone (LIZ) will develop an online information, screening and triage service for separating families. The project, which builds on a multi-session design thinking exercise LIZ ran to engage diverse stakeholders in thinking about ways to reform the family justice system, is aimed at directing those experiencing family breakdown to a range of resources (legal and non-legal).

PIAC will create a user-friendly consumer guide for payday loan users and will design a model policy framework to support the establishment of an ombudsperson-type regime to oversee payday loan complaints, disputes, and violations.

iHuman will undertake two activities. First, it will develop a series of legal education sessions for high-risk youth on a variety of topics. Second, it will utilize iHuman’s existing uncensored drama-based program to develop training modules for child welfare, law enforcement, and legal professionals on topics such as: FASD; trauma’s impact on deviancy, criminality and resilience; and communication strategies for engaging vulnerable youth in non-adversarial dialogue.

UTTAM will put a legal information site online in the “Frequently Asked Questions” format covering rights and obligations under the Quebec act respecting industrial accidents and occupational diseases. 

Working in partnership with legal experts, ACORN Canada will create materials for public legal education workshops to help marginalized communities in Toronto and Ottawa access justice related to consumer rights and fringe financial institutions.

JusticeTrans provides free legal information about transgender rights across Canada via a website and mobile phone application. In this project, JusticeTrans will redesign its mobile phone application and update the legal information on its website.

Through this project, CLASSIC will work to remove barriers to justice for low-income individuals in Saskatoon and empower them to assert their legal rights and protections. Focusing on Indigenous people, the project will serve: recipients of social assistance; inmates; and people with disabilities. This project will educate community members through advocacy workshops and PLE presentations. In addition, the project will develop an ID workshop and resources on Gladue, both of which will specifically benefit the local Indigenous community.

The Law Commission of Ontario will continue to make recommendations to: make the legal system more relevant, accessible and efficient; simplify or clarify the law; use technology to increase access to justice; stimulate critical debate about law; and promote scholarly legal research.

This project will increase access to culturally respectful legal services for Indigenous individuals in and around Calgary. By employing an Indigenous articling student, the project provides a social justice career alternative to Indigenous law students, builds the organization’s capacity to engage with local Indigenous peoples and communities, and increases access to justice for those who are experiencing systemic barriers.

PLIAN will develop new, online legal information resources for Newfoundland and Labrador, which will be the primary source for legal information, navigation, and education in the province. The online portal will include a “guided pathways” platform that will navigate users to answers for their legal inquiries using a series of questions. All areas of law will be covered, with a particular focus on family law.

KEYS Job Centre will create a legal training program for frontline service providers and community/peer leaders assisting newcomers. The training will focus on aspects of employment and occupational health and safety, as well as public safety and immigration law affecting newcomers’ access to employment.

CLIA PEI will develop a comprehensive and confidential intake and referral process that will inform a continuous improvement cycle, enabling CLIA to improve operational processes and provide tailored public legal education and information to residents of PEI.

The Justice Education Society of B.C. will introduce “Ask JES Legal Help Services” for 40 of the most popular Provincial Court and Supreme Court forms – for both civil and family matters – in British Columbia. “Ask JES” is Canada’s first virtual legal help service, which was developed with a grant from the LFO in 2011. A new guided pathway tool will be developed to help users identify and complete the court forms they need, supported by virtual assistant help and tips, as well as by phone, live chat, and email.

Luke’s Place will develop a comprehensive workbook/toolkit to support women navigating Ontario’s family court process (and intersecting legal processes) that will include tips, tools and resources. Luke’s Place will develop the content of the workbook into a series of workshops for women to prepare them for their family court experience, pilot the workshops in Durham, and share the content with trained facilitators across Ontario.

NCCM’s “Know Your Rights, Know Your Responsibilities” guide was created in 2001 to provide legal education and support to Canadian Muslims. This project will update and enhance the guide so that it reflects the current issues faced by Canadian Muslims. In addition, NCCM will developing training materials to accompany the guide, translate the guide and related materials in up to eight languages, and train Muslim community leaders and service providers to communicate and promote the guide.

Luke’s Place will expand the reach of its virtual pro bono family law clinic, which serves women who have left an abusive relationship and are not able to access legal representation. The clinic is already established in rural and remote regions of north-eastern Ontario and will be expanded to north-western and rural eastern Ontario.

In partnership with the Korean Canadian Lawyers Association, Vietnamese Women’s Association of Toronto (VWAT), and Kababayan Community Service Centre Inc. (KCSC), KCWA will create and deliver a legal information training project for frontline workers and trusted intermediaries serving members of the Korean, Vietnamese, and Filipino communities.

The AJEFA will develop public legal information workshops and resources in French for Francophone Albertans on specific immigration topics, such as sponsorship of a parent or grandparent, foreign workers, and the rights of sponsored persons living in conflict, as well as family law matters, including family violence, child protection, discipline, and the youth justice system. The project will target vulnerable populations such as immigrants, seniors and youth in particular.

This new service, modeled on the service provided in five Ontario hospitals under the aegis of Pro Bono Ontario, will be offered to the parents of sick children who are patients at the Montreal Children’s Hospital who are having legal problems relating to or exacerbated by their child’s illness.

This research project will identify barriers and develop recommendations for increasing the coordination and integration of justice services in order to increase access to justice for marginalized individuals.

OJEN will to expand the reach and depth of its successful Access to Justice Simulation Game. It will produce durable and re-useable print versions of the simulation materials that can be made available to educators; develop a digital platform for the simulation; and create comprehensive facilitator’s guides that explain how to use the simulation with different audiences.

The Community Engagement in International Justice project will provide legal education to refugees and immigrants who have survived serious international human rights violations, such as torture and war crimes, about the options for redress that may be available in Canada and globally. The project will also provide opportunities to engage survivors in emblematic human rights cases and other justice initiatives being advanced through the CCIJ and its team of pro bono lawyers.

The Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia and the Association des juristes d’expression française de la Nouvelle-Écosse will work together to provide a more effective, coordinated, and collaborative public legal education, information, and referral hub.

OJEN will carry out programs that facilitate and support broad-based activity by the judiciary, the bar, the courts, and the education community throughout Ontario, with a primary focus on students and the strengthening of links between the justice and education communities. It will enhance existing high school mock trial competitions and deliver Law Day activities that are designed to develop awareness of the legal profession, the judicial system, and the rule of law in Canada.

Pro Bono Students Canada will continue to provide practical learning experiences for law students and free legal information and services to Canadian organizations and individuals in need.

The OFIFC will undertake a community-driven research project to recognize local Indigenous legal/justice knowledge and enhance the delivery of the OFIFC’s Aboriginal Community Justice Programs. The goal of the project is for Friendship Centres to engage with local Indigenous knowledge keepers regarding traditional legal and community justice approaches. The project will explore how Indigenous communities dealt with conflicts and harmful behaviours traditionally and how those approaches, principles, and teachings can reframe or enhance the delivery of the Aboriginal Community Justice Program.

Clinique Juridique Juripop will bring legal professionals together in a vacant space for a festive family event to create a unifying space for making the law accessible to the public.

This project is an expansion of the original project. The OFIFC will deliver six half-day legal education workshops on human rights legislation aimed at 200 community leaders within Indigenous Friendship Centre communities. Attendees will include Friendship Centre staff, board members, and volunteers. The workshops will provide training on how to distinguish potential human rights violations and how to access the provincial human rights system.

Connecting Ottawa will continue to coordinate a consortium of over 40 legal and non-legal organizations to implement a regional plan to provide legal information and referrals to people who are not proficient in English or French or who face communication challenges as the result of a disability or sensory impairment.

Community Legal Education Ontario will continue to house the Connecting Communities Secretariat to coordinate and support legal and non-legal organizations working to improve access to justice for linguistic minorities and rural and remote communities by training frontline workers and trusted intermediaries.

The Centre will create a program to educate frontline social service workers, including settlement workers within the Muslim community, as well as Muslim religious leaders and possibly other faith leaders. The focus will be on child welfare law, immigration law, and intimate partner violence.

The SSP will provide legal support for private sponsorship groups across Canada through four core activities: a training program for lawyers and law students who volunteer to help sponsors complete private refugee sponsorship applications; direct support through a variety of service delivery models, including legal clinics and matching programs with SSP-trained pro-bono lawyer; a public outreach program to promote SSP services and provide basic public legal information to support sponsor groups; and a campus program to train and engage law students in direct support of refugee sponsorship and sponsorship-related research.

The Children’s Lawyer Initiative is a three-year project to establish a children’s lawyer in BC. The initiative will serve the legal needs of children in contested family law cases, child protection matters, and other legal matters faced by children.

Ryerson will conduct a formative and summative evaluation of the Cross-Over Youth Project (COYP), a four-year demonstration program designed to address the systemic factors that contribute both to the high rate of youth in Ontario who transition from the child welfare to the juvenile justice system and to the poor outcomes they experience, compared to their non-child welfare counterparts.

Boost Child & Youth Advocacy Centre will design, implement and evaluate a pilot project to increase access to justice for young victims of human sex trafficking in Toronto. This pilot project will be developed in coordination with the Human Trafficking Enforcement Team of Toronto Police Services and other organizations. The model will be made available to other child advocacy centres across Canada that are working with this population.

PBSC will finalize its new governance model

The Chippewas of the Thames First Nation and the Canadian Environmental Law Association will develop legal and policy mechanisms to protect and improve the drinking water for three First Nations in southwestern Ontario.

The Legal Help Centre will provide legal information workshops, drop-in information and triage, appointment-based one-on-one coaching, and document preparation services for self-represented litigants, as well as representation in Small Claims Court for consumer law matters. The clinic will be staffed by law and articling students and will provide services to individuals who are unable to effectively advocate for themselves due to barriers that include literacy and language, socioeconomic circumstances, culture and disability.

The Action Group on Access to Justice (TAG) will bring together institutional, political and community justice system stakeholders throughout Ontario and build the infrastructure for collaboration, cross-sector innovation and coordinated solutions to the access to justice problem.

The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History will study and promote public interest in the history of the law, the legal profession and the judiciary in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.

Pro Bono Ontario will continue to create and manage programs that connect volunteer lawyers with low-income Ontarians, either directly or in partnership with charitable organizations working in local communities.

Innocence Canada will continue to coordinate and administer its pro bono program, which reviews and assesses claims of innocence and provides legal assistance for cases of wrongful murder convictions.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust will conduct in-class seminars, workshops, and lectures to students in elementary and high schools and to pre-service teachers in faculties of education across Ontario via two programs: Teaching Civil Liberties and Civil Liberties in the Schools. The focus is on engaging students in critical thinking and respectful debate about rights and freedoms.

The DWS will analyse over 3,000 OPP Domestic Violence Supplemental Report Forms (DVSRs) from both criminal and non-criminal incidents to gather quantitative data in order to assist with the development of an alternative model for responding to domestic violence.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The DWS will develop educational materials regarding human rights for people living with dementia in partnership with the Ontario Dementia Advisory Group (ODAG).ODAG is an organization of individuals in Ontario living with dementia that work with experts to influence policies and practices that affect their lives.

LAWS’ Summer Job Program places students in paid four-week jobs with law firms, government legal departments, corporate legal divisions, and public interest organizations. The grant enables LAWS to place students in positions with legal aid clinics and public interest organizations, and provides unique opportunities for students to learn about public law and access to justice, observe the legal aid system, and interact directly with community members.

BTL will create public legal education tools using an innovative process of community consultation to determine which resources are most in demand.

The Women’s Centre will establish pro bono clinics in the areas of criminal law, immigration law, and employment law and run each of them one evening per month.

SPCI will develop a web platform containing legal and educational resources to be used by municipal planning professionals, Indigenous leadership, municipal governments, academics, and students who are interested and involved in planning consultations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

AJEFO will organize and lead Law Day 2017 activities aimed at Francophone high school students in five different regions of the province.

The ACLA will conduct consultations with Arab Canadians living in Ontario about their access to justice needs and disseminate a report of their findings to community groups and other access to justice stakeholders in Ontario.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

EVA will provide legal education to Indigenous service providers to enhance their capacity for understanding and addressing complex issues related to violence against women, access to justice, and legal policies.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

OCASI, in partnership with the Colour of Poverty Campaign/Colour of Change Network, the Metro Toronto Chinese & South East Asian Legal Clinic, Rexdale Community Legal Clinic and the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, will undertake research to identify barriers faced by racialized communities in accessing administrative tribunals and how these barriers affect the tribunal’s effectiveness and efficiency. They will also develop a tool and related policy on collecting disaggregated data that will help to eliminate or better understand the barriers faced by racialized communities in accessing tribunals.

The grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

This award is in honour of Paul Schabas’s contribution as Chair of the Law Foundation of Ontario. PBO will hire a law student to work at McMaster Children’s Hospital. Under the supervision of the on-site PBO lawyer, the student will provide ongoing legal issue spotting training to clinicians, assist patients by providing legal information and summary advice, making referrals to existing legal and social service resources, and conducting the legal research required to organize a knowledge management database for PBO’s medical-legal partnerships.

Dr. Yvonne Boyer will conduct legal research and analysis on the Constitution rights to health for Indigenous inmates in the federal and provincial systems.

MIAG, in partnership with legal professionals and clinics, will hold a series of workshops with front-line workers and community leaders on domestic and sexual violence, and parents’ rights and responsibilities towards their children. The goal of the project is to equip participants with the knowledge to share legal information with, and improve access to justice for, new immigrants and refugees.

Grand Council Treaty #3 will hire an education coordinator who will develop and facilitate education seminars on the criminal justice system in 28 Anishinaabe communities located in Ontario and Manitoba. The education seminars will be delivered to youth and community members, and responds to Band leadership and in schools to educate community members (victims and offenders) about the criminal justice system. During community forums held to collect input for the 2013 Iacobucci Report  on First Nations representation on juries, members and Elders from 24 of the 28 GCT3 communities identified the need for legal education in criminal law, particularly for youth and their families.

The LCO will redevelop its website and fund two research papers for its “Defamation Law in the Age of the Internet” project.

This project will use “design thinking” to explore how technology might be used to implement the recommendations found in the Feathers of Hope Justice & Juries: A First Nations Youth Action Plan for Justice report.

Ryerson’s Legal Innovation Zone, in collaboration with the Foundation, will convene a diverse group of youth, stakeholders, professionals, and community members, to participate in design-thinking processes to identify barriers to youth access to justice. The group will work together to develop solutions that engage technology strategically to improve access to youth justice.

The CCNC (Toronto) will develop and deliver training to enable front-line workers and other trusted intermediaries who come into contact with migrant sex workers to be more effective in supporting these individuals with their legal needs.

The Peel Multicultural Council will provide training on human rights law and the Ontario Disability Support Program to over 240 settlement and community workers serving the needs of newcomers in the Peel Region and surrounding areas.

The Gilbert Centre will develop and deliver legal information and system navigation training for front line workers and community leaders with respect to people who are transgender.

Level will hire a national program director for its ongoing “Dare to Dream” program. Through interactive justice education workshops and mentorship activities, Indigenous youth learn about the Canadian justice system, as well as the importance of incorporating Indigenous practices into criminal justice proceedings.

Matthew House will expand its Mock Refugee Hearing Program, which provides simulated or “mock” refugee hearings as a means of effectively preparing refugee claimants for their hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). The program provides an opportunity for refugees to be prepared for their hearing, as well as offering law students a chance to gain invaluable training and insight into the refugee determination process in Canada.

This project will increase the reach, scope and accessibility of the website www.fasdjustice.ca, a go-to web resource for information on FASD and the justice system. Project activities will include a visual overhaul of the site, content development, case law updates, implementation of a social media strategy, and training delivery, to ensure that the site is reliable and current tool.

LAWS is a partnership between the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, and the Toronto District School Board that delivers a law and justice-themed academic and extra-curricular high school program designed to teach students about law and justice, support them to graduate from high school, access post-secondary education, and consider a justice sector or legal profession career.

Youth Now Canada will pilot a program to provide youth in the Cornwall area afflicted with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) information and hands-on support in dealing with their legal issues.

Canadian Families and Corrections Network will develop a resource explaining the parole process for those who are incarcerated and those who support them.

BLSA Canada will put on its annual conference to promote professional development, legal education, mentorship, cultural awareness, and access to justice.

Gillian’s Place will conduct research to support the creation of an online, regionally specific legal information resource tor women who have been victims of domestic violence.

PLIAN will create simple, easy-to-read information pamphlets explaining the basics of the child protection system, translated into 3 Indigenous languages common in Newfoundland and Labrador. Further, PLIAN will carry out a series of information sessions and community roundtables on the child protection system in several Indigenous communities.

FCJ Refugee Centre will continue to ensure access to justice for precarious migrants with a focus on new and emerging areas of immigration policy and intersections with the criminal justice system. It will also increase the capacity of other refugee-serving organizations to do the same through training workshops.

CLEO and the Ontario Library Association will develop and offer an eight-week online certification course for library staff on key aspects of legal information and referral. The aim of the course is to increase the capacity of library staff to help patrons who have legal problems.

Regent Park Focus will collaborate with the Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN), local police services, Toronto Community Housing, lawyers, and other officials in the courts and justice system, to engage a minimum of 50 youth (ages 14-24) from four Toronto neighbourhoods  in the research, production, and broadcasting of a series of “Youth and the Law” media segments.

The SCCC will work with 3-5 low-income, racialized youth living with mental health concerns as peer educators to increase access to mental health supports for young people who are involved in, or at-risk of being involved in, the criminal justice system.

This two-year Alberta project will encourage lawyers and the public to use limited scope retainers where full retainer counsel is not possible, not affordable or not desired. It will assess lawyers’ and clients’ experience with limited scope work. The project will result in a report that evaluates the experiences of lawyers and clients participating in the program.

In collaboration with Osgoode Hall Law School, CAMH will perform a qualitative study of the perceptions of ORB members and counsel for the accused, hospital and Crown, and senior clinicians regarding to what extent and how the disposition hearing process addresses the twin goals of protecting public safety and treating forensic patients fairly.

The Action Committee will build public access to justice education tools, and an Innovation Toolbox to advance public legal education about the importance of understanding and engaging in legal issues.

CLEO’s Centre for Research and Innovation will conduct research, facilitate partnerships and develop projects to help build the capacity of CLEO and other community organizations to reach marginalized communities with the legal information and education they need to understand their legal rights.

Fourteen community colleges in Ontario will purchase a consortial subscription to Quicklaw. The subscription will allow the students and faculty of Ontario’s paralegal programs full access to this standard electronic legal resource for both teaching and research purposes.

The NLC will carry out research and educational activities on issues in Aboriginal and constitutional law. It also maintains an online database of legal pleadings in cases of interest to practitioners of Aboriginal law, and publishes resources on developments in Aboriginal law with a focus on Aboriginal concepts of justice.

CDAC will increase access to justice for people with speech and language disabilities by informing people who have these disabilities about their right to communication accommodations and intermediaries when using justice services, and by increasing the capacity of the justice sector to make their services accessible for this population by knowing how and when to engage communication intermediaries.

Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services will provide legal information training to frontline workers in Thunder Bay, and Sioux Lookout and surrounding communities on supporting their clients when interacting with police or the legal system.

The South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (Toronto, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal services to linguistic minorities in 2018-2019. This Articling position is funded through the Foundation’s Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Legal Clinic will hire an Articling student to provide legal services to residents of rural and remote communities in 2018-2019. The Articling position is funded through the Foundation’s Connecting Articling Fellowship Program.

The Algoma Community Legal Clinic (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal services to residents of rural and remote communities in 2018-2019. This Articling position is funded through the Foundation’s Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Community Advocacy and Legal Clinic (Belleville, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal services to residents of rural and remote communities in 2018-2019. This Articling position is funded through the Foundation’s Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Keewaytinok Native Legal Services (Moosonee, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal services to linguistic minorities and residents of rural and remote communities in 2018-2019. This articling position is funded through the Foundation’s Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic (Toronto, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal services to linguistic minorities in 2018-2019. This articling position is funded through the Foundation’s Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

UOI proposes to develop an access to justice guide that will provide information and resources on how to navigate the Ontario court system for distribution in the Anishinabek Nation. UOI will seek input from Chiefs, Indigenous community leaders, and legal experts. Once the guide has been drafted, it will be translated into Anishinaabemowin, printed and distributed.

PBO will create an online tool that integrates frontline triage, application forms and administrative processing tasks with a portal to their case management software to enhance services for low-income self-represented litigants.

Community Legal Education Ontario will continue to develop the Your Legal Rights site, which serves as the central hub for all public legal education and information (PLEI) in Ontario. It will also establish best practices and tools for online PLEI work. It will also continue to develop content for the new Steps to Justice site, an interactive, step-by-step site that gives comprehensive online information about common legal problems that people experience in family, housing, employment and other areas of law.

In this two year project, the Centre of Research, Policy & Program Development at the John Howard Society of Ontario, with the active support of Legal Aid Ontario and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and further assistance from the Canadian Mental Health Association Ontario and Justice for Children and Youth, will develop and execute a research, education, and policy initiative on youth bail in Ontario. This initiative will address the gaps and barriers in accessing reasonable and timely bail for youth in Ontario and develop evidence-based solutions to the problems.

The Thunder Bay Consolidated Courthouse was designed with an Aboriginal Settlement Conference Suite (ASCS) to support justice-involved Indigenous people who are navigating the courts, in a culturally appropriate way. IYFS will hire an Indigenous Peoples’ Court Coordinator (“Court Coordinator”), whose main role will be to assist with the continuing development and implementation of the Indigenous People’s Court using the ASCS in Thunder Bay. Indigenous Elders will be recruited to work in tandem with local judiciary to facilitate healing for youth and adult offenders.

Saqijuq will conduct an evaluation of its pilot program, “A Change in Wind Direction.” The pilot program currently runs in the Inuit communities of Puvirnituq and Kangirsuk, located in northern Quebec, and aims to curb alcohol and drug abuse and reduce criminalization. The evaluation will use a collaborative research approach and will work with community members to frame the objectives of the research, indicators, sources of data and expected results.

Innocence Canada will undertake a legal education project to disseminate information about the causes and consequences of wrongful convictions to stakeholders in the criminal justice system.  The project will focus on the particular vulnerabilities of Indigenous and racialized populations to being wrongly convicted in an effort to create systemic changes.

The SPRC will provide educational workshops for community leaders and service providers on laws pertaining to tenant/landlord rights and responsibilities specifically in relation to new Canadians who face displacement due to gentrification.

This two-year legal research project will explore whether new remedies, including a restitutionary remedy, should be available to investors who suffer from corporate wrongdoing, be it under securities law, corporate law or criminal law. This project will focus on the need for additional or alternative regulation in the area of investor remedies.

This project will examine the remedies available for investors under the Ontario Securities Act for corporate misreporting in both prospectuses and continuous disclosures and will explore avenues to strengthen investor rights in these cases. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop appropriate, evidence-based policy recommendations for reform.

This research project will help inform a rehabilitation-oriented wellness court model for Nunavut. The research outcomes will assist the government of Nunavut as it moves forward in efforts to provide specific support to justice-involved Inuit in the territory.

This research project will help inform a rehabilitation-oriented wellness court model for Nunavut. The research outcomes will assist the government of Nunavut as it moves forward in efforts to provide specific support to justice-involved Inuit in the territory.

SHED Bella Coola will use its legal advocacy program to deliver workshops on legal topics to the remote mid-coast Indigenous communities of Bella Bella and Klemtu and will provide client services through advocacy clinics for Indigenous members of those communities.

SEED Winnipeg, in partnership with the Legal Help Centre of Winnipeg, Momentum in Calgary and academics from Menno Simons College and Queen’s University, will research the experience of low-income registered education savings group plan subscribers and the regulatory context in which these plans are sold. Based on this research, SEED will develop and pilot public legal education materials on group plans tailored to address the needs of low income investors and community-based service providers.

Osgoode Hall Law School, in partnership with the Canadian Foundation for Advancement of Investor Rights, will develop and operate a pro-bono legal clinic and living lab to assist and educate harmed investors and collect relevant data. The clinic, staffed by law students under the supervision of practicing lawyers, will provide free advice to retail investors on how to proceed when they have suffered a loss due to fraud or other wrongdoing. The data collected will contribute to a better understanding of the issues faced by retail investors and how best to help them. The project will also produce publicly available “self-help” information. This will be the first legal clinic of its kind in Canada.

This project focuses on the way in which the financial sector treats vulnerable investors when regulatory bodies take disciplinary measures against dealers and their representatives. The project will examine the decisions of self-regulatory bodies (IIROC, MFDA and CSF) over the last five years in Ontario and Quebec with a view to determining whether and to what extent vulnerability is taken into consideration in disciplinary proceedings and to making recommendations for stronger vulnerable investor protection.

In this this two-year project, Éducaloi will develop a plain language legal information kit and workshop, in both French and English, to support seniors when making investment decisions. Éducaloi will address three topics dealing with investor rights: the legal duties and responsibilities of financial and investment professionals; investment fraud and legal recourses; and powers of attorney and protection mandates to ensure seniors’ investment decisions are respected.

FAIR Canada will undertake a comparative study of legislative and regulatory approaches that allow financial services firms and investment advisors to take immediate, short-term protective action for the benefit of vulnerable customers who may have lost capacity to give instructions due to dementia or other causes or who may be being subjected to undue influence, including elder financial abuse. FAIR will use the study results to develop a model protocol for taking protective action and, if warranted by the research, a regulatory framework establishing a legal safe harbour or similar mechanism for Canada.

In this two-year research and public legal education project, the Canadian Centre for Elder Law (CCEL) will undertake research to identify the legal issues and barriers affecting vulnerable investors who wish to invest, or continue managing their existing investments, under a Supported Decision Making approach, the aim of which is to maximize access to investment options while minimizing the loss of autonomy. The CCEL will also produce a suite of tools for people with capacity challenges, their supporters and investment industry members.

Ryerson University will gather practice-based evidence of the implementation of an Addictions Treatment Court and disseminate evidence to individuals, the legal community and addiction treatment organizations in Ontario.

Northwatch will conduct a needs assessment and outreach to explore priorities and build relationships to support legal education for small municipalities, volunteer fire fighters and first responders regarding emergency responses relating to the transportation of dangerous goods, including and particularly radioactive waste.

METRAC will upgrade its Ontario Women’s Justice Network (www.owjn.org) website for women and youth experiencing violence and their supporters.

COPA will create an online resource for parents, guardians, caregivers, community support workers and educators that will explore the legal framework of corporal punishment in Canada and will include alternate approaches to discipline.

CERA will deliver a series of arts-based housing and human rights legal education workshops for street-based sex workers in Toronto.

The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network will gather front line service providers and policymakers to provide information about and methods for meeting the application requirements to legally operate supervised consumption sites

People’s Law School will organize and deliver 40 performances of its Justice Theatre program to schools and communities with significant Indigenous populations in British Columbia, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan. The performances will focus on the role that restorative justice plays in Canada’s criminal justice system. The grant will also be used to develop teacher and student resources including a handbook of materials for teachers

Seed funding for a social enterprise that will offer, for a fee, a series of online courses pertaining to sexual assault and consent to students and employees at Canadian colleges and universities.

The Elizabeth Fry Society of Ottawa will hire and train an Indigenous peer support worker who will provide peer support to Indigenous women who are incarcerated or at risk of incarceration and who are reintegrating into the community after incarceration. The peer support worker will act as peer advocate and resource and will provide court support to women navigating the criminal justice system.

The Child Protection Parent Education Program Committee will translate a child protection booklet into the Mi’kmaq language. The booklet accompanies the legal information DVD on child protection proceedings created with a previous Law Foundation of Ontario grant.

Aboriginal Legal Services will undertake two projects. First, it will prepare a video to help families of murdered and missing Indigenous people navigate the justice system and access legal supports. Second, it will prepare a video and handbook for lawyers to assist them in working more effectively with Indigenous clients.

This interactive learning day will provide front line workers with practical and legal information as well as support tools and resource material to better serve low income community members navigating the challenges of finding and maintaining safe, healthy and affordable housing in Lanark County.

Training materials will be developed and delivered to key professionals within the developmental and other disability sectors and to individuals with disabilities and their intermediaries that will increase knowledge regarding the Ontario Disability Support Program and the Residential Tenancy Act.

The Second Chance Scholarship Foundation will provide a post-secondary education scholarship to a youth enrolled in a program relating to legal education, and who is currently, or has been, involved in the criminal justice system or who is at risk of such.

The Law Commission of Ontario will continue to follow its mandate to: recommend law reform measures to enhance the legal system’s relevance, effectiveness and accessibility; improve the administration of justice through the clarification and simplification of the law; consider the use of technology to enhance access to justice; and stimulate critical legal debate about the law.

The Refugee Sponsorship Program (SSP), based at the University of Ottawa, brings together lawyers, law students, and refugee sponsorship experts to assist private refugee sponsors through the provision of pro bono legal services. During a period of intense national demand, the Law Foundation provided funding to support the SSP’s matching services (which matches lawyers with sponsorship groups), the recruitment and training of lawyers, and the coordination of legal clinics and public legal information sessions.

Pro Bono Students Canada will continue to provide practical learning experiences for law students and free legal information and services to Canadian organizations and individuals in need.

OJEN will carry out programs that engage the judiciary, the bar and the courts throughout Ontario to strengthen links between the justice and education communities. It will enhance existing high school mock trial competitions and deliver Law Day activities that are designed to develop awareness of the legal profession, the judicial system, and the rule of law in Canada.

METRAC will build the capacity of individuals, communities and organizations to effectively assist the most marginalized women and youth facing violence and in need of legal information. Program activities include providing legal education and information in clear language on a range of topics for service providers and producing and disseminating multilingual legal information resources sensitive to the diverse experiences and realities of women.

The Barbra Schlifer Clinic will offer online courses for language interpreters and legal service providers, developed with a previous grant, for a further year. The online course for language interpreters aims to increase interpreters’ knowledge of legal terminology and legal process, and to familiarize them with legal documents and forms. It provides information on the Canadian legal system and on criminal, family and immigration law. The online course for legal service providers, which has been accredited by the Law Society, is intended to equip lawyers and paralegals in Ontario with best practices for working with spoken language interpreters, in-person and remotely.

This project will provide access to justice for those wishing to sponsor Syrian refugees. Lifeline Syria currently partners with the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program (SSP) to provide pro bono legal support to private sponsors. Lifeline Syria will hire a Project Coordinator for one year to leverage and enhance the pro bono efforts of lawyers and law students. 

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means. 

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means. 

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means. 

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means. 

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means. 

The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History will study and promote public interest in the history of the law, the legal profession and the judiciary in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada and stimulate research and publication on these subjects. 

The Dream Team will develop and deliver workshops on the Residential Tenancies Act and tenant rights to low-income tenants in community settings in the GTA. 

Connecting Ottawa will continue to coordinate a consortium of over 40 legal and non-legal organizations to implement a regional plan to provide legal information and referrals to people who are not proficient in English or French or who face communication challenges as the result of a disability or sensory impairment. The aim of the project is to improve access to justice. 

Reach Canada will deliver community legal education through accessible formats to a broad community of persons with disabilities and their families. 

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means. 

Pro Bono Law Ontario will continue to create and manage programs that connect volunteer lawyers with low-income Ontarians either directly, or in partnership with charitable organizations working in local communities. 

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means. 

The Law Society of Nunavut will provide public legal education across the territory to assist Nunavummiut to understand and exercise their legal rights in a number of areas of law and will develop and implement youth outreach workshops. 

LAWS’ Summer Job Program places students in paid four-week jobs with law firms, government legal departments, corporate legal divisions, and public interest organizations. The grant will enable LAWS to place students in positions with legal aid clinics and public interest organizations that would otherwise be unable to employ the students, and provide unique opportunities to learn about public law and access to justice, observe the legal aid system, and interact directly with community members. 

LCCJ will expand its capacity to provide restorative justice practices to youth by proactively engaging with the 40 schools and youth centres in the county. Trained volunteers will work with the students, parents’ associations and school administrators to assist them in using restorative justice practices to resolve issues of conflict.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

Community Living Ontario will work to develop a comprehensive resource guide for individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families, outlining best practices for wills, trusts and estate planning.

Community Legal Education Ontario will continue to house the Connecting Communities Secretariat to coordinate and support the activities of a group of legal and non-legal organizations working to improve access to justice for linguistic minorities and rural and remote communities.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust will conduct in-class seminars, workshops and lectures to students in elementary and high schools, and to pre-service teachers in faculties of education across Ontario via two programs: Teaching Civil Liberties and Civil Liberties in the Schools. The focus is on engaging students in critical thinking and respectful debate about rights and freedoms.

The BLSA Canada annual conference promotes professional development, legal education, mentorship, cultural awareness and access to justice.

AIDWYC will continue to coordinate and administer its pro bono program that provides review and assessment of claims of innocence, and legal assistance for adopted cases of wrongful murder convictions.

AJEFO will organize and lead Law Day 2016 activities aimed at Francophone Ontario high school students in five different regions of the province.

The South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (Toronto, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to linguistic minorities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic (Toronto, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to linguistic minorities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Legal Clinic will have an Articling student to provide legal information and services to residents of rural and remote communities. The Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Keewaytinok Native Legal Services (Moosonee, ON) will hire an Articling Student for 2017-2018 to provide legal information and services to linguistic minorities and residents of rural and remote communities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Community Advocacy and Legal Clinic (Belleville, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to residents of rural and remote communities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program. 

The Algoma Community Legal Clinic (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to residents of rural and remote communities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

Funding will assist with the development of a new governance model. 

In this project, People to People will hold a series of workshops with community leaders and front-line workers on immigration, human rights and criminal law as they relate to people living with HIV/AIDS. The workshops will use the Ethiopian coffee ceremony – a traditional form of discussion and information sharing in the Ethiopian community.  The goal of the project is to equip participants with the requisite knowledge to share legal information and make referrals to legal services for community members. 

OJEN will renovate its content management system and relationship management solution to build better performance monitoring systems, develop its fundraising capabilities, and increase its administrative capacity. 

Lakehead University, Faculty of Law will provide a scholarship to a law student in financial need.

WAC will expand the dialogue through e-bulletins, training sessions, workshops and forums, in order to build capacity and deliver public legal education in at least six Ontario communities facing high rates of precarious low-waged work. 

Confronting an increasingly complex communications marketplace, Canadian consumers need meaningful and reliable information to understand their rights, make informed choices, and evaluate solutions for successful self-advocacy. Through direct consultation with consumers on their information seeking, access, and use habits, this project will establish best practices and an online toolkit for consumers to access and evaluate solutions for successful self-advocacy. 

TAG will bring together institutional, political and community stakeholders throughout Ontario and build the infrastructure for collaboration, cross-sector innovation and coordinated solutions to the access to justice problem.  

Building on the success of SKETCH’s previous project, Acting OUT-Street Law Smarts will recruit and train LGBTQ2S-identified youth to be Legal Educators/Advocates. They will develop and deliver theatre-based training workshops to provide relevant legal education with a particular focus around sexual orientation and gender identity issues for community professionals working with homeless and street-involved youth. 

SSO will increase the capacity of its Designated Representative service by engaging a program coordinator. The program coordinator will provide support for individuals impacted by mental illness who are facing immigration/deportation proceedings, train peer-support workers, and conduct training workshops for professional groups who interface with this population. 

The Native Law Centre will carry out research and educational activities on issues in Aboriginal and constitutional law. The NLC also maintains an online database of legal pleadings in cases of interest to practitioners of Aboriginal law, and publishes resources on developments in Aboriginal law with a focus on Aboriginal concepts of justice.  

LAWS is a partnership between the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Toronto District School Board that delivers a law and justice-themed academic and extra-curricular high school program designed to teach marginalized students about law and justice, support them to graduate from high school, access post-secondary education and consider a justice sector or legal profession career. 

The project will evaluate whether and how views of the child reports can assist children, their parents and ultimately the courts to understand the views and preferences of children. It will also assess the value of these reports for facilitating less expensive and more timely family dispute resolution.

FCJ Refugee Centre will develop and implement an integrated response and case management model for precarious migrant populations and disseminate the findings and best practices to the wider settlement and migrant-serving communities.

Fourteen community colleges in Ontario will purchase a consortial subscription to Quicklaw, Canada’s major legal information system. The subscription will allow the students and faculty of Ontario’s college paralegal programs full access to this standard electronic legal resource for both teaching and research purposes.

Community Legal Education Ontario will continue to develop the “yourlegalrights.ca,” a comprehensive legal information site for Ontarians. The site’s goal is to serve as the central hub for all public legal education and information (PLEI) related activity in Ontario and establish best practices and tools for online PLEI work.

CLEO’s Centre for Research and Innovation will conduct research, facilitate partnerships and develop projects to help build the capacity of CLEO and other community organizations to reach marginalized communities with the legal information and education they need to understand their legal rights.

METRAC will build the capacity of individuals, communities and organizations to effectively assist the most marginalized women and youth facing violence and in need of legal information. Program activities include providing legal education and information in clear language on a range of topics for service providers and producing and disseminating regionally targeted and multilingual legal information resources sensitive to the diverse experiences and realities of women.

Dare to Dream is an innovative program that bring together members from the legal community to educate, inspire and mentor Aboriginal students through justice-focused educational activities. Due to the continued success of the program in Toronto and Ottawa, CLA-ACE proposes to expand Dare to Dream to the Chippewas of Rama First Nation in 2015-16.

MCRS will develop a program for the Kitchener-Waterloo area to attract and support LGBTQ refugee claimants through the refugee determination process. 

 On the Record is a legal public education series on police record checks in Ontario created and delivered by JHSO in partnership with Canadian Civil Liberties Association. 

This award is in honour of Mark J. Sandler’s contribution as Chair of the Law Foundation of Ontario. The bursary, valued at $2,000 per year, is funded for five years (2016-2020). Its purpose is to fund travel related expenses for recent call lawyers to attend the Criminal Lawyers’ Association’s continuing professional development programming.

This project will provide training to disability advocates, including social workers, speech-language pathologists, peer support workers, and family members in three areas of law – consent and capacity, housing and attendant services, and access to essential services – that impact people who have speech and language disabilities (SLDs), not caused by hearing loss. The aim of the training is to increase the ability of front-line workers to support their clients who have SLDs who are facing legal problems.

The Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres (OFIFC) will provide training workshops on human rights legislation, anti-discrimination protections, and the human rights enforcement process to community leaders within Indigenous Friendship Centre communities in Ontario. The project aims to promote education and awareness, advance access to justice and begin facilitating a dialogue about discrimination and human rights issues in Aboriginal communities across the province.

The CLA will hold an intensive advocacy program for junior members of the defence bar in Ontario, including subsidizing the travel and accommodation for those from remote areas.

Luke’s Place, in partnership with Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, proposes to establish a virtual pro bono family law clinic model for women who have left an abusive relationship and are not able to access legal representation in a remote, underserved region of the province.

The Law Commission of Ontario will continue to follow its mandate to: recommend law reform measures to enhance the legal system’s relevance, effectiveness and accessibility; improve the administration of justice through the clarification and simplification of the law; consider the use of technology to enhance access to justice; and stimulate critical legal debate about the law.

This project will train frontline staff working with young people and youth leaders on the law as it relates to sexting and cyberbullying, and the serious impact of these behaviours on victims. A video will be produced jointly with the Niagara Regional Police Services, which will provide a key training resource for the project. Workshops will be held throughout the Niagara Region and a webinar will be created and offered to the coordinators of the forty Youth Justice Committees throughout Ontario.

Pro Bono Students Canada (PBSC) provides legal services without charge to organizations and individuals in need in Canada. Housed at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, it is the only national law student program in Canada with chapters in 21 law schools. Its law student volunteers serve communities from coast to coast, working to increase access to justice by offering high quality, professional legal assistance and meaningful leadership opportunities for students who run the local chapters.  The LFO’s funding covers all program costs at the Ontario law school chapters, and contributes to national office costs, including the annual national training conference for Student Coordinators.

The Second Chance Scholarship Foundation will provide a post-secondary education scholarship to a youth enrolled in a program relating to legal education, and who is currently, or has been, involved in the criminal justice system or who is at risk of such.

The Ontario Justice Education Network will carry out programs that facilitate and support broad-based activity by the judiciary, the bar, the courts, and the education community throughout Ontario, with a primary focus on students and the strengthening of links between the justice and education communities. It will enhance existing high school mock trial competitions and deliver Law Day activities that are designed to develop awareness of the legal profession, the judicial system, and the rule of law in Canada. 

The Coalition Assisting Trafficked Individuals (CATI) proposes to develop and implement an innovative legal training project that will offer training to front line community agency staff as well as non-traditional service providers. The information will be offered to a wide range of intermediaries, both those traditionally considered service providers (i.e. shelter workers, health workers) as well as non-traditional intermediaries (i.e. individuals who work in hair and nail salons, hotels and restaurants). The project will increase participants’ awareness of the social and legal issues facing people who are being trafficked and will, most importantly, provide information and resources to them.

This project will provide members of Ontario’s faith sector with relevant knowledge about key poverty law areas and how these relate to situations where an individual has mental health issues. The project will enhance the capabilities and capacities of the faith sector to identify legal issues and be able to provide pre-crisis and referral supports to individuals living in poverty and with mental health-related issues.

The Community Advocacy and Legal Clinic (Belleville, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to residents of rural and remote communities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program. 

The Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic (Toronto, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to linguistic minorities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Legal Clinic will have an Articling student to provide legal information and services to residents of rural and remote communities. The Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (Toronto, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to linguistic minorities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Keewaytinok Native Legal Services (Moosonee, ON) will hire an Articling Student for 2016-2017 to provide legal information and services to linguistic minorities and residents of rural and remote communities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Algoma Community Legal Clinic (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to residents of rural and remote communities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

In this three-year research study CLEO, working in partnership with the Institute for Social Research at York University, will examine the effectiveness of Public Legal Education and Information (PLEI) in helping people with low and modest incomes address their legal problems. The research, conducted at sites in Ontario and British Columbia, will collect and examine qualitative and quantitative data on the factors or characteristics that contribute to PLEI’s effectiveness in supporting positive outcomes in a range of circumstances along the legal services continuum.

The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (Toronto, ON) will train front-line staff working with migrant workers and migrant worker leaders on new developments in labour and immigration law in the GTA and rural areas of Ontario. This project is an outgrowth of Connecting Communities.

Mentorship, training and supervision are provided by MLST members for law students who assist unrepresented persons appearing before the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board on requests for review of decisions of regulated health professions colleges.

Law in Action Within Schools (LAWS) will  place students in paid positions with legal aid clinics and public interest organizations that enable students to learn about public interest law and access to justice, observe the legal aid system, and interact directly with community members.

LAWS is an innovative partnership between the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Toronto District School Board that delivers a law and justice-themed academic and extra-curricular high school program designed to not only teach marginalized students about law and justice, but to support them to graduate from high school, access post-secondary education and consider a justice sector or legal profession career.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

Community Legal Education Ontario (Toronto, ON) will continue to house the Connecting Communities Secretariat to coordinate and support the activities of a group of legal and non-legal organizations working to improve access to justice for linguistic minorities and rural and remote communities.

The Centre Haïtien des Carrières et des Emplois will organize, develop and deliver a legal information training program in French to 100 youth from French-speaking, ethno cultural communities.  The training will cover general information about the justice system and criminal law, including youth rights in interactions with police, breach of recognizance, the legal aid system and support for youth in detention centres.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

CHALN will improve the support services available to women in Ontario by 1) convening front-line workers from HIV and violence against women sectors to learn about the intersections among their areas of work, and 2) creating information sheets for service providers and “Know Your Rights” materials for women living with HIV on gender based violence, HIV and available services.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust will conduct in-class seminars, workshops and lectures to students in elementary and high schools, and to pre-service teachers in faculties of education across Ontario via two programs: Teaching Civil Liberties and Civil Liberties in the Schools. The focus is on engaging students in critical thinking and respectful debate about rights and freedoms.

The BLSA Canada annual conference and initiatives are projects that promote professional development, legal education, mentorship, cultural awareness and access to justice. 

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

AIDWYC will continue to coordinate and administer its pro bono program that provides review and assessment of claims of innocence, and legal assistance for adopted cases of wrongful murder convictions.

The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History will study and promote public interest in the history of the law, the legal profession and the judiciary in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada, and to stimulate research and publication on these subjects.

The project will engage 25 youth (ages 14-24) in the research, production, and broadcasting of a television series (5 shows) around public legal education topics, legal resources, and case studies that are relevant to and reflective of the lives of young people today.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

Pro Bono Law Ontario will continue to carry out its mandate to promote access to justice in Ontario by promoting opportunities for lawyers to provide pro bono (free) legal services to persons of limited means.

PLN will hold legal workshops for families who have a person with a disability. These workshops educate these families on how to plan for the future using wills, estate planning etc.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The Huron Women’s Shelter (Goderich, ON) will trains front-line staff working in the violence against women sector and in other grassroots agencies in rural Huron County on the intersection between poverty and mental health law. This project is an outgrowth of Connecting Communities.

Building on the success of a previous Connecting Communities project grant, the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations (Toronto, ON) will hold a series of trainings aimed at providing front-line workers with in-depth education on tenants’ rights in six rural communities across Ontario. This project is an outgrowth of Connecting Communities. 

Connecting Ottawa (Ottawa, ON) will continue to coordinate a consortium of over 40 legal and non-legal organizations to implement a regional plan to provide legal information and referrals to linguistic minorities.

Queen’s University, Faculty of Law will provide a scholarship to a law student in financial need.

Luke’s Place will research online conferencing services to be used to provide virtual family law services to survivors of violence against women.

Kinbrace will adapt to Ontario, translate into three languages and disseminate its educational tool designed to help refugee claimants further understand the refugee determination system and increase their capacity to prepare for their refugee hearings.

Fourteen community colleges in Ontario will purchase a consortial subscription to Quicklaw, Canada’s major legal information system. The subscription will allow the students and faculty of Ontario’s college paralegal programs full access to this standard electronic legal resource for both teaching and research purposes.

The Caring Society will create a customizable online educational resource on the sources of systemic disadvantage for First Nations children on reserve, available redress systems and resources, and pragmatic examples of how individuals, group and organizations can address them.

The FCJ Refugee Centre will implement two new programs for refugee claimants – the READY Tour, and the RAD Ready Tour – as well as continue to provide direct support to uprooted populations and training to refugee serving agency staff in the refugee determination process.

This is a pilot project in the Ottawa Family Court for high conflict custody and access cases. The goal is to provide high conflict families with enhanced access to judicial and community resources and support as they enter the court system to help them resolve parenting disputes promptly and efficiently, while shielding the children as much as possible from the negative consequences of their parents’ conflict.

Community Legal Education Ontario will continue to develop the “yourlegalrights.ca” site that contains the three building block components (i. legal information, ii. information and referral, and iii. education and training) of a comprehensive legal information site for Ontarians. The site’s goal is to serve as the central hub for all public legal education and information related activity in Ontario, and establish best practices and tools for online PLEI work.

CLEO’s Centre for Research will conduct research, facilitate partnerships and develop projects to help build capacity of CLEO and other community organizations to reach marginalized communities with the legal information and education they need to understand their legal rights.

Bearskin Lake First Nation will continue its development of a comprehensive, Anishinaabe-centred means of enforcing community by-laws that suppress the manufacture, importation, and use of intoxicants.

Sudbury Workers’ Education and Advocacy Centre will hire an individual who will provide outreach services and educational presentations to smaller communities within the City of Greater Sudbury as well as District of Sudbury. Educational presentations will consist of topics such as Employment Standards Act, Human Rights, Health and Safety and WSIB.

Flip Your Wig for Justice is a campaign to raise awareness, visibility and funds in support of improving access to justice in Ontario.

The Native Law Centre will carry out research and educational activities on issues in Aboriginal and constitutional law. The NLC also maintains an online database of legal pleadings in cases of interest to practitioners of Aboriginal law, and publishes resources on developments in Aboriginal law with a focus on Aboriginal concepts of justice.

The Centre will survey and conduct interviews with key stakeholders, produce a final report, and develop tools and resources for legal and social service providers working with LGBT refugees.

Adam Vasey, Director of Pathways to Potential, will work with the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law, to define community based conceptions of access to justice, develop a pedagogically sound model for law student externship placements with anti-poverty organizations, and facilitate networks between university disciplines and community groups.

Adam Vasey, Director of Pathways to Potential, will work with the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law, to define community based conceptions of access to justice, develop a pedagogically sound model for law student externship placements with anti-poverty organizations, and facilitate networks between university disciplines and community groups.

OJEN/ROEJ plans for a PLE Hub or Centre in Ontario by co-locating and coordinating administrative staff, as well as services with CLEO.

The Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough will create and implement diversions for women before the criminal court into programs and services that address the underlying issues fueling their criminal activity. The goal of these diversions is to have charges withdrawn or sentences lessened.

Community Law School will update all course materials, lessons, and assignments in the Certificate in Community Advocacy Program; enhance and expand Program materials and pedagogy to include more timely and interactive content; cross-reference and introduce students to complimentary materials from and being hosted by other sources such as CLEO, Your Legal Rights, and the Connecting Communities Projects; and investigate additional methods and options for broader reach and delivery of the Program and core Program materials.

Community Information Fairview will train students who are enrolled in law and law-related courses at local colleges and universities to assist with a legal advice clinic two evenings per week.

CLA-ACE will expand its Dare to Dream program into the Ottawa area. This innovative program brings together members from the legal community to educate, inspire, and mentor Aboriginal students through justice-focused educational activities. 

CCIJ will redevelop its website to enable a more user-friendly and engaging platform to, in part, host a number of legal education tools primarily directed at people who have survived, or lost loved ones to, international atrocities such as torture and war crimes. 

The Catalyst Project will bring together the major players on access to justice throughout Ontario and build the infrastructure for collaboration, cross-sector innovation and coordinated solutions to the access to justice problem.

METRAC will build the capacity of individuals, communities and organizations to effectively assist the most marginalized women and youth facing violence and in need of legal information. Program activities include providing legal education and information in clear language on a range of topics for service providers and producing and disseminating regionally targeted and multilingual legal information resources sensitive to the diverse experiences and realities of women.

The Law Commission of Ontario will continue to follow its mandate to: recommend law reform measures to enhance the legal system’s relevance, effectiveness and accessibility; improve the administration of justice through the clarification and simplification of the law; consider the use of technology to enhance access to justice; and stimulate critical legal debate about the law.

Community Legal Information Association (Charlottetown, PEI) will recruit, train, mentor and supervise students on a Legal Studies track from the University of Prince Edward Island and Holland College to provide legal information to clients on its Legal Inquiry Line.

Pro Bono Students Canada will continue to provide practical learning experiences for law students, and free legal information services to Canadian organizations and individuals in need. It is the only national law student program in Canada, and the only national pro bono program in the country.

The Ontario Justice Education Network will carry out programs that facilitate and support broad-based activity by the judiciary, the bar, the courts, and the education community throughout Ontario, with a primary focus on students and the strengthening of links between the justice and education communities. It will enhance existing high school mock trial competitions and deliver Law Day activities that are designed to develop awareness of the legal profession, the judicial system, and the rule of law in Canada. 

Equay-wuk (Sioux Lookout, Ontario) will train Aboriginal community workers and Elders in 31 remote communities in northern Ontario in the law as it relates to violence against women and human rights. This project is an outgrowth of Connecting Communities.

The South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (Toronto, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to linguistic minorities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

Sandgate Women’s Shelter (Sutton West, Ontario), in partnership with the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario and the Community Legal Clinic of York Region, will train community workers and faith leaders serving victims of family violence on the criminal justice system. This project is an outgrowth of Connecting Communities.

The Legal Clinic (Perth, ON) will have an Articling student to provide legal information and services to residents of rural and remote communities. The Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship Program.

OJEN and CLEO will investigate collaboration in the Public Legal Education (PLE) sector, including the possibility of creating a PLE Hub. 

The Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic (Toronto, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to linguistic minorities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program. 

The Keewaytinok Native Legal Services (Moosonee, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to linguistic minorities and residents of rural and remote communities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The Community Advocacy and Legal Clinic (Belleville, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to residents of rural and remote communities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program. 

The Algoma Community Legal Clinic (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) will hire an Articling Student to provide legal information and services to residents of rural and remote communities. This Articling position is funded through the Connecting Articling Fellowship program.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

The comprehensive grant will support activities that respond to access to justice needs in the local community and provide student enrichment opportunities through experiential learning and other means.

Pro Bono Law Ontario will continue to carry out its mandate to promote access to justice in Ontario by promoting opportunities for lawyers to provide pro bono (free) legal services to persons of limited means.

AIDWYC will continue to coordinate and administer its pro bono program that provides review and assessment of claims of innocence, and legal assistance for adopted cases of wrongful murder convictions.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust will conduct in-class seminars, workshops and lectures to students in elementary and high schools, and to pre-service teachers in faculties of education across Ontario via two programs: Teaching Civil Liberties and Civil Liberties in the Schools. The focus is on engaging students in critical thinking and respectful debate about rights and freedoms.

The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History will study and promote public interest in the history of the law, the legal profession and the judiciary in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada, and to stimulate research and publication on these subjects.

The Victim Justice Network will organize, promote and deliver an online-based planning symposium and webcast to engage its Board of Directors and Advisory Committees that consist of victims of crime, legal researchers and academics, victim services and other experts in the field.

The FCJ Refugee Centre will form a Youth Action Committee to create and execute a series of creative and interactive workshops for newcomer youth as a way for them explore their experiences in accessing justice through artistic, creative and culturally appropriate ways. The project will value youth decision making, leadership, and it will lead to a citywide series of artistic events.

Egale will create and distribute the LGBT Parental Recognition Ontario Info Brochure Series to provide legal guidance reflecting the complex realities LGBT couples face when attempting to achieve parental recognition in the province.

The Aboriginal Youth Summer Program offers a one-week, on-campus, mini-law school experience designed to engage Aboriginal youth in critical thinking about the law and Aboriginal legal issues, and provide a positive exposure to post-secondary education. Students discuss advanced legal concepts, learn about the reality of the Canadian legal system, and apply their knowledge in a variety of stimulating, skill building activities.

Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario (AJEFO) will organize and lead Law Day 2014 activities aimed at Francophone Ontario high school students in five different regions of the province.