{"id":18097,"date":"2014-07-04T18:05:39","date_gmt":"2014-07-04T10:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=18097"},"modified":"2014-07-04T18:05:39","modified_gmt":"2014-07-04T10:05:39","slug":"b-c-s-legal-aid-lawyers-threaten-service-withdrawal-over-government-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/07\/04\/b-c-s-legal-aid-lawyers-threaten-service-withdrawal-over-government-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C.\u2019s legal aid lawyers threaten service withdrawal over government funding"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo from Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia Facebook page<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VANCOUVER\u2014Lawyers who provide legal aid in British Columbia are once again threatening to withdraw their services and begin a long-term protest over government funding.<\/p>\n

The association that represents B.C.\u2019s trial lawyers says the provincial government charges a tax on legal services, generating more than $144 million annually.<\/p>\n

But the Trial Lawyers Association of BC says the province\u2019s Legal Services Society must turn down two out of every three people who apply for legal aid.<\/p>\n

As a result, the group says it will withdraw services from July 5 to Aug. 8 and resume action in early October, continuing indefinitely with similar protests for one week at the start of every month.<\/p>\n

B.C.\u2019s trial lawyers began similar job action in January 2012 but suspended their protest one year ago to get talks started with the province\u2019s new justice minister.<\/p>\n

Last October, Attorney General Suzanne Anton announced child-protection cases would go ahead, even though legal-aid lawyers had raised concerns earlier that the government didn\u2019t have the money to pay them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lawyers involved are withdrawing services now with the hope of causing great improvements to be made in the future for citizens in need of legal assistance,\u201d says association spokesman Chris Johnson in a news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings have been very bad for many years, and it\u2019s only gotten worse over time. Far too many citizens need help, yet two-thirds of them are denied legal aid when they apply for assistance. It\u2019s that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER\u2014Lawyers who provide legal aid in British Columbia are once again threatening to withdraw their services and begin a long-term …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":18098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}