The Access to Justice Fund (ATJF) Grants Program
At the present time, the ATJF is closed to further letters of intent and applications. Please watch this website for announcements regarding calls for proposals to the ATJF.
The ATJF is a permanent fund administered by the Law Foundation of Ontario (LFO) that is open to receiving and administering cy-près awards. The Fund was established in July of 2009, when the LFO was entrusted with monies as a result of the settlement in the class action lawsuit Cassano v. TD Bank 2009 CanLII 35732 (ON S.C.). The court order approving the settlement directed the LFO to create a fund for the purpose of making grants in support of public access to justice in Canada.
The ATJF is the only national funding source with an access to justice mandate. The LFO identified five themes for the current round of grants from the Fund: linguistic and rural access to justice, aboriginal access to justice, self help, family violence and consumer rights. Projects may be national, regional or local in scope.
The ATJF was launched on May 31, 2010 with a comprehensive communications rollout, including placing advertisements in newspapers across the country. The response far exceeded expectations with more than 210 letters of intent from across the country. The total requests were for a much greater amount than was available from the Fund. For this reason, the Fund was closed to further letters of intent effective February 28, 2011. Grant decisions for the Fund are ongoing throughout 2011 and final allocation of some funds will extend over a longer time period in order to support subsequent phases of long term projects.
Since the Cassano award, the ATJF has received two additional cy-près awards in Smith Estate v. National Money Mart Co. 2008 CanLII 27479 (ON S.C.) and Skopit v. BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. 2010 ON S.C. 6039.
The LFO will manage the distribution of future awards according to particular orders or terms that may apply. Distribution of funds originating from future cy-près awards may involve different consultative processes, themes and geographic distribution than applied during this last round of grants.
The following is a list of grants made from the Access to Justice Fund to date. The grants made have a wide geographic distribution and all five Fund themes are well represented.
Aamjinwnaang First Nation (Sarnia, ON), in conjunction with Osgoode Hall Law School, will hold a community forum on environmental law and mount an arts-based educational project for youth.
The Barbra Schlifer Clinic and Springtide Resources (Toronto, ON) are developing training materials for Deaf and ASL Interpreters who work with victims of domestic violence.
The British Columbia Coalition of People with Disabilities (Vancouver, BC), in partnership with PovNet and the Community Legal Assistance Society, will develop an online training course for workers helping clients with CPP disability proceedings and a self-help manual for clients who are applying for CPP disability benefits.
The Canadian Hearing Society (Toronto, ON), in partnership with three Ontario community legal clinics, is working to improve access through sign language interpretation, to legal services.
The Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (Toronto, ON) will conduct a series of webinars and workshops in Ontario on housing and human rights. This project is an outgrowth of the Connecting Communities Consortium (see below).
The Community Law School Sarnia-Lambton (Sarnia, ON) will train service providers in rural and remote communities on consumer protection issues.
Community Legal Education Ontario (Toronto, ON) will co-ordinate and support the “Connecting Communities Consortium”, a group of legal and non-legal organizations working together to increase the capacity of front line serve organizations (e.g., settlement organizations) to provide basic legal information and referrals to linguistic minorities and rural residents.
Community legal clinics in three regions of Ontario are leading the development of regional planning models focusing on serving linguistic minorities and/or rural residents. In addition a range of community legal clinics serving rural and linguistic minorities will host articling students for the 2012–2013 and 2013–2014 articling years.
Courthouse Libraries B.C. (Vancouver, BC) will host a national conference on online public legal education as well as conduct follow up online seminar activities.
Éducaloi (Montreal, QC), a leading Quebec public legal education organization, will spearhead a major public legal education initiative in the area of consumer rights, including the creation of web-based content and outreach to youth.
The Elizabeth Fry Society of Ottawa (Ottawa, ON) will provide legal information to aboriginal women released from prison on community supervision and release conditions.
The Ending Violence Association of B.C. (Vancouver, BC) will train front line service providers who work with aboriginal communities on domestic violence issues.
La Fondation du Barreau du Quebec (Montreal, QC) will produce guides for self-represented litigants in criminal and administrative law matters. The guides will be modeled on a successful existing guide in civil matters and will be available in French and English.
La Justice Education Society (Vancouver, BC) will deliver legal information to self-represented litigants in the province using innovative online tools and, in partnership with staff at Vancouver’s Justice Access Centre, a telephone support service.
The Legal Help Centre of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, MB) will operate a drop-in legal information centre and legal clinic in downtown Winnipeg. The centre will be staffed by students and will be operated in partnership with the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba.
The Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia (Halifax, NS) will develop a pro bono legal services model for that province.
The Legal Resource Centre of Alberta (Calgary, AB) in partnership with Alberta Law Libraries, will develop the first phase of a project to produce an online public legal information “portal” for Albertans.
Luke's Place (Durham, ON), a support and information centre for victims of domestic violence who are involved in family law proceedings, will expand its pro bono clinic services for unrepresented victims of domestic violence who are dealing with divorce, separation, custody, and support issues.
The Multilingual Orientation Services Association for Immigrant Communities (Vancouver, BC) will deliver legal information on domestic violence issues to immigrant communities.
The National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation (Ottawa, ON) will deliver its education module on careers in the justice sector (lawyers, parole officers, court clerks, etc.) to twenty secondary schools with high populations of aboriginal students. The project will solicit requests for deliveries from schools in northern Ontario, Quebec, the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and Atlantic Canada.
The Native Law Centre (Saskatoon, SK) will continue to carry out its mandate and produce publications and educational activities related to aboriginal peoples and the law in Canada. In addition the Native Law Centre (Sask, SK) will enhance and sustain its Program of Legal Studies for Native People which offers legal education and skills instruction to aboriginal students from across the country who have been admitted to law school.
The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (Toronto, ON) will produce a book-length history of the Ontario Court of Appeal, written by renowned Canadian historian and author Christopher Moore.
The People's Law School (Vancouver, BC) will bring its long-running Justice Theatre programming to aboriginal students in remote communities in northern B.C., the Yukon, and Saskatchewan. Justice Theatre performances are based on actual cases and allow students to participate as members of the jury.
Pro Bono Law Ontario (Toronto, ON) will extend its Law Help model for providing pro bono legal services (currently in place in Toronto) to Ottawa. Volunteer lawyers in the court building will assist unrepresented litigants with procedural information, form completion and duty counsel representation.
Pro Bono Students Canada (Toronto, ON) will coordinate a program to enable law students to provide pro bono assistance to institutions that serve unrepresented family law litigants in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Quebec.
The Public Legal Information Association of Newfoundland and Labrador (St. John’s, Newfoundland) will produce a self-help kit for individuals completing an uncontested divorce and a kit for individuals carrying out the duties of an executor. The kit will include all necessary forms and instructions for filling out the forms, and will be distributed free of charge.
The Public Legal Education Association (Saskatoon, SK) will develop a stand-alone web site for self-represented litigants dealing with family law issues in Saskatchewan. PLEA will develop a large amount of new content for the web site, which will offer legal information on a wide range of family law topics.
The Public Legal Education and Information Service of New Brunswick (Fredericton, NB) will coordinate the delivery of up to 100 workshops on family law topics to self-represented litigants across the province.
South Fraser Women’s Services Society (Surrey, BC) will hire a South Asian Legal Educator to provide the South Asian community in the Lower Mainland with legal education, information and advocacy as it relates to violence against women and children.
Law and journalism students at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC) will provide assistance to individuals who claim they have been wrongly convicted of a serious crime through the University' Innocence Project.
The University of Ottawa (Ottawa, ON) will lead a project to develop self-help materials for refugee claimants and train refugee support workers.
The University of Windsor (Windsor, ON) will host a conference on class actions and access to justice.
The West Coast Prison Justice Society (Abbotsford, BC) will hire a legal advocate dedicated to providing advice and assistance to aboriginal prisoners who are currently incarcerated and dealing with legal issues in prison.
The Workers’ Action Centre (Toronto, ON) in collaboration with several community partners, will train community and front-line organizations working with linguistic minorities and rural communities on employment standards and human rights in employment. This project is an outgrowth of the Connecting Communities Consortium (see above).
YWCA Canada (Toronto, ON) will train frontline staff at 10 YWCA shelters in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. The training will prepare staff to assist aboriginal victims of domestic violence by improving their knowledge of the justice system.
