Legal aid struggles with cases
Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Nov 24/00) - Legal Aid Services is already operating at a dangerous deficit in the North and may soon be driven closer to bankruptcy.
The number of people arrested in what RCMP are calling the largest drug bust in the NWT is cause for serious concern. Its funding issue has been ongoing for years, said Legal Services executive director Greg Nearing.
He said they were already in a pickle and with the number of people applying for legal aid to deal with these charges, the situation is bound to get worse.
The agency is currently treading water with a $150- to $200,000 deficit holding them under.
"With these guys coming in God knows where we will end up," Nearing said.
"In a worst case scenario our budget will shoot straight into the ozone and that has a direct impact on the people who need it most."
Nearing is talking about family law.
"I'll be damned if I let that happen," he added.
Legal Aid gets the bulk of its money from the department of justice that doesn't discriminate between criminal and civil cases.
That means when the money runs out women and children are affected.
"If I'm told to come in on budget the next woman from the Alison McAteer house who needs help doesn't get it," Nearing said, and as far as those arrested on drug charges go, "Maybe they don't get it either."
Nearing said the lawyers that do legal aid work in the North work for less.
He said cases get through courts here faster than in any jurisdiction but all the benefits are of no use if there isn't enough money.
"It means if I run out of money I might have to shut down," he said.
The RCMP and Crown's office, although busy because of the charges and arrests, is not being hit with the same kind of financial blows legal aid has taken for years across the country, Nearing said.
Louise Charbonneau is the acting group head of criminal prosecutions at the NWT regional office for Justice Canada. She said this is the busiest the Crown's office has been as far as the sheer number of arrests go.
"People tend to work overtime here all the time," she said.
"But when something out of the ordinary happens like this, people tend to have to work even harder to keep up."
She said the prosecutors work schedule relies on the court schedule.
At times, when there are a large number of cases waiting to be heard in court, territorial court schedules an extra day.
Currently, docket day in that court is held once per week.
"It will increase the workload in Yellowknife court and in the Crown's office. People have been and will continue to work very hard to keep up and that is true for the defence, RCMP and us."
Charbonneau said until it is clear what kinds of court proceedings will be held for those charged, such as preliminary inquiries, trials by judge or by jury, it is impossible to say just how busy they will be in the future.
