In what critics are calling an attack on Toronto and on advocacy work that challenges the provincial government, Legal Aid Ontario is cutting almost $1 million in funding across 13 neighbourhood legal clinics in the city and pulling $1 million from a 14th clinic, Parkdale Community Legal Services. “This is a directed attack,” said Lenny Abramowicz, executive director of the Association of Community Legal Clinics of Ontario. “They are specifically attacking the portion of the clinic mandate that is most challenging to the government — and the city of Toronto.” News of the cuts, which Mayor John Tory has described as “harsher” in Toronto compared to the rest of the province, was being communicated to legal clinics by Legal Aid Ontario beginning Wednesday.One of the provincial agency’s main responsibilities is to provide funding for private lawyers to represent impoverished people in court. It is also the main funder of Ontario’s 73 community legal clinics, some of which provide general legal services to low-income people on matters such as housing and income security in specific “catchment areas,” while others have provincial mandates in certain issues, including HIV/AIDS, children and youth, and the elderly.Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) has been grappling with cuts to its budget made by the Ford government in April — a 30 per cent reduction of the previously anticipated $456-million provincial allocation. The cuts that LAO is imposing on clinics, totalling about $14.5 million, are part of a larger cost-cutting effort to save about $70 to $75 million this year. The cuts will also see reductions to LAO’s internal operations, to its funding for private lawyers in court, and to immigration and refugee services. Read more: Toronto’s most vulnerable residents will bear the cost of legal clinic cuts, advocates sayCuts to legal aid will impact society’s most vulnerable, lawyers sayPremier ...
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