Table 15-3
Approved legal aid applications, staff and private lawyers by type of civil matter — Other

Effective April 20, 2009, intake services for family legal aid were expanded when eligibility screening for services formerly captured under the Domestic Legal Aid program was transferred to New Brunswick Legal Aid Services Commission from the Department of Justice and Consumer Affairs.

Ontario has 77 legal aid clinics that are independent, non-profit organizations funded by the legal aid plan. Staff lawyers and community legal workers at these clinics provide legal aid services primarily in "other" civil matters, particularly in the area of poverty law which includes, social assistance/income maintenance, landlord and tenant, workers' compensation, criminal injuries compensation, and refugee and immigration matters. The figures in Table 16 represent summary legal advice services provided by these clinics. Summary legal advice services provided by the legal aid plan are included in duty counsel services (Table 21).

In 2005/2006, Manitoba began to issue one legal aid certificate per matter. This led to an increase in the count for total, approved and refused legal aid applications. In 2006/2007, the use of certificate equivalents initiated by staff was discontinued, resulting in a decrease in the count for total and approved applications and an increase in refused applications. In 2009/2010, Manitoba began to include the number of applications that were used to generate secondary or tertiary certificates in the total number of legal aid applications reported. This led to an increase in the count for total and approved legal aid applications and accounts for the increase in approved applications assigned to staff and private lawyers.

In 2008, all youth matters became eligible for legal aid under an agreement between the Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission and the Ministry of Justice's Court Services Branch. This led to an increase in the count for total and approved legal aid applications.

No distinction is made between summary and full service applications in Yukon. All applications are counted as full service applications. Data for Yukon include duty counsel counts.

Presumed eligibility counts are not included in the data for the Northwest Territories. Territorial offences are included with criminal matters.

In 2009/2010, the capacity for statistical reporting in Nunavut was limited due to issues with information tracking systems. As a result, the number of approved applications may be underreported and are not comparable to previous years and information is only available for civil matters approved to staff lawyers.