Legal aid lawyers in Quebec began a first day of strike Thursday, in several regions of Quebec, disrupting many services offered to the population. Picket lines are set up in front of courthouses in the province, including those in Montreal and Rimouski.
All services offered by the legal aid centers of Montreal, Laval, Montérégie, Laurentides, Lanaudière, Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie will be interrupted until April 14, said their unions, which are affiliated with the CSN.
But for certain government services and programs, all of Quebec will be affected.
These disengaged legal aid lawyers are demanding pay parity with Crown attorneys, who, like them, are employees of the Quebec state. They have been without a collective agreement for three years.
They had been paid the same salary as them for 35 years, but the current offers from the Treasury Board do not make it possible to maintain this parity, explained Ms.e Hugo Caissy, president of the CSN union for the Bas-St-Laurent and Gaspésie–Îles-de-la Madeleine regions. Our request is reasonable, he adds, noting that legal aid “is the pillar of accessibility to justice” and the “last bastion before the state” for vulnerable people.
About 300 of the province’s 400 legal aid lawyers are on strike, he calculates.
“We plead the same cases, before the same judges, in the same courtrooms as the prosecution. And we are told that we are not worth as much as the Crown prosecutors, ”continued Me Mélanie Desjardins, a member of the executive of this same union, from the Rimouski courthouse, where the lawyers were picketing Thursday. However, we are the “two sides of the coin” in many criminal cases: a defense attorney in prosecution and, in front of him, a legal aid lawyer.
And while there is already a shortage of lawyers for legal aid in the regions, it will be even more difficult to recruit candidates, adds Mr.e Cashy.
True, legal aid lawyers play a key role in access to justice in Quebec, emphasized the office of the Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette. “We are monitoring the situation closely and we obviously hope that an agreement can be reached quickly,” adds his cabinet.
As for the President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, she assures “that there is everything that is needed on the table to resolve the conflict”, claiming to have taken “fair and reasonable” measures. – she argues from the corridors of the National Assembly.
If both sides agree on one thing, it’s that negotiations have been intense lately.
But over the next few days, cases will be postponed and delayed in the regions on strike, both in criminal and civil law, including family law cases.
Certain services will even be interrupted throughout Quebec during this labor dispute, in particular telephone and video call services during the Easter holiday, which are normally provided by Montreal legal aid. This will also be the fate of certain ministerial programs, such as Rebuild, both for the legal advice line for victims of domestic violence and the priority treatment of the resulting cases.
Approaching 1er July, a large number of citizens will also not be able to benefit from the services of legal aid to contest eviction notices and other abusive increases, argue the lawyers on strike.
“Unfortunately, it is the people who need it the most who will suffer from the lack of legal aid services if the President of the Conseil du trésor cannot come to an agreement with these workers, whose task goes far beyond the only argument. They do a real job of education and support,” lamented Liberal André A. Morin, Official Opposition Justice Critic.
Thursday morning, at the Montreal courthouse, the absence of legal aid lawyers was already felt. In room 3.07, a detainee without a lawyer was initially unable to obtain one to appear. “There is no one from legal aid today. You will have to come back later, “said the judge of the Court of Quebec. A defense attorney came to her aid later.
Despite the walkout, a legal aid lawyer still showed up in this courtroom to settle two delicate cases for people struggling with mental health problems.
Without us, defendants can put themselves in perilous situations without knowing it, warned Mr.e Cashy.