Government of Canada Provides $1 Million in funding to fight anti-Black racism in the justice system

BY PAUL JUNOR

On Wednesday, November 9^th, 2022, the federal government provided $1 million to Toronto’s Black Legal Action Centre (BLAC). The funds will be distributed over a four-year period through the Justice Canada’s Justice Partnership and Innovation Program. Specifically, BLAC will be running the “Combatting Anti-Black Racism through Litigation and System Navigation project.”

BLAC is interested in recruiting: lawyers, academics, representatives of community organizations, and individuals with real-life experiences to become part of an advisory committee. This committee will be fleshing out the subsequent steps of the project. Most of the advisory committee members will not be paid, except the private bar lawyers

Teklu stated, “We have raised race-based arguments, and have interviewed cases dealing with s.15” Charter equality rights. We’ve also developed training for members of the [legal aid] clinic system on how to raise race-based arguments in poverty law. This is the first time that we will be doing this kind of work in the areas of child protection, immigration and prison law.”

An important aspect of the project will be civil actions which are intended to ensure that the state is accountable for cases that involve personal injury suits that result from police misconduct or deaths in prison. Teklu notes further, “We’ll be helping, or working with, members of the private bar, academics, and experts to develop factums, memorandum, expert reports, to help lawyers and other legal service providers raise race-based arguments in these areas of life.”

BLAC hired an international lawyer, Abamba Godpower to oversee the project. Teklu observes, “For the first few months, we’ll work with the advisory committee to identify the areas that we should be focusing on along with the tools and the resources. We’re not going to be hiring staff, but we’ll be engaging members of the private bar and paying them to draft these resources.”

Legal Aid Ontario is committed to providing extra staff to help with the project, as well as senior counsel who will examine and check the materials the project unearths. Akawasi Owusu-Nempah, a Sociology Professor at the University of Toronto examines the intersection of: race, crime, and criminal justice will examine the effectiveness of the project. Teklu elaborates,

“What we’re hoping is for him to look at whether the use of these reports by lawyers leads to better justice outcomes for clients, and whether they change the experiences and perceptions of the legal system of clients. So we’ll be doing a lot of data collection surveys, focus groups, and things like that. Then, when we have the findings of that, if we find ‘Actually, yes, this does lead to better justice outcomes and better experiences,’ then we’ll use that information to advocate for continued funding.”

The press release notes that it will:

• Provide legal professionals and other experts with the information they need to raise legal arguments related to individual and systemic anti-Black racism in the justice system
• Increase access to justice for Black Ontarians, and strengthen the Canadian legal framework by ensuring that legal professionals representing Black clients are putting the best legal arguments forward in the areas of: criminal, child protection, immigration, prison, and civil law
• Pay “system navigators” to provide information, advice, and supports to Black people who have a legal issue in the area of: criminal, child protection, immigration, or civil law