It’s certainly understandable that some people don’t like a proposal to create up to five Greater Toronto Area legal clinics from 16 existing organizations.
The plan, touted by a steering committee looking to reform the clinic system in the region, would certainly cause disruption. Some people would lose their current jobs and clients would undoubtedly find the changes difficult given the new locations. Many of them can’t afford to travel very far to access legal services.
At the same time, the opponents are right to suggest that local services are generally better. Community is key to the clinic system, and there’s little doubt three large organizations for Toronto itself, plus one each for Peel and York regions, would be more distant from the people they serve.
But with government finances under pressure, it’s clear the idea of enhanced neighourhood services isn’t realistic at this time. The steering committee that looked at the clinic system was emphatic in its recent report that the current framework isn’t ideal either. The catchment areas don’t always match the need where poverty is highest, and many of the existing organizations are too small to provide a full array of services efficiently.
As such, it outlined a proposal to allow for greater economies of scale by having larger clinics while continuing to serve individual neighbourhoods through local access points. The details are scant, but the plan could include having staff from the larger organizations rotate around various community agencies in their catchment areas to provide services. The idea is to maintain local services while improving efficiency. In essence, proponents hope to do more with similar levels of funding.
The critics raise valid points and doubts about whether that will happen and note a better solution would be to increase funding across a cash-starved clinic system.
But as that’s not likely to happen, the steering committee has done the next best thing by coming up with a proposal that has some promise of creating a system that operates more effectively with existing budgets. And with several clinics in favour of the proposal or at least participating in the discussions at the moment, it’s clear there’s support. The challenge for the proponents will be to reassure people about the plans for continued local services. They should provide more details on that, but for the moment the plan they’ve put forward, while not a panacea, is a solid one.
For more, see "
Report outlines details for clinic mergers" and "
New group forms to oppose Toronto legal clinic mergers."
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Glenn Kauth
