A call by the Barreau du Québec to broaden access to legal aid by relaxing financial eligibility thresholds was quickly dismissed by Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier who declared that the provincial government can’t afford to inject more monies into the province’s government-funded legal aid program.
Before considering reforms, the Quebec government intends to see through a five-year plan launched in 2005 that confers annual indexation coupled with marginal increases of legal aid eligibility thresholds, added Fournier, who articled at a Montreal legal aid office in 1982.
“There are always requests for increased government assistance but that must be balanced with the capacity of the State and its citizens to pay,” said Fournier at a scrum shortly after the Barreau summoned the government to enact legal aid reforms. “So for the time being we are going to apply the play adopted five years ago.”