Quebec’s 400 legal aid lawyers, whose collective agreement expired in December 2019, have over the past two weeks given the three unions that represent them the green light to launch a strike that would total three days.
The Quebec government has offered legal aid lawyers a six per cent increase over three years, the same amount handed to civil servants, an offer that was flatly and immediately snubbed. Legal aid lawyers, who now earn between $59,000 and $120,000 annually, are seeking a 10 per cent increase over four years, as Quebec Crown prosecutors received in 2020.
Justine Lambert-Boulianne
According to Marie-Ève Fillion, a spokesperson with Ministry of the Executive Council and Treasury Board Secretariat, the “working conditions” of legal aid lawyers are different from Crown prosecutors. “These two groups have a different bargaining regime which may lead to different outcomes,” said Fillion.
Labour relations between Quebec legal actors and the provincial government have been marked by bitter and protracted disputes since the turn of the century. Quebec government lawyers and notaries reached an agreement this spring with the provincial government after countless bargaining sessions over a seven-year stretch that eventually led to the longest Canadian strike by public civil servants.
Court of Quebec judges and municipal court judges have barely fared better. There have been eight judicial compensation committees since 1998, and the government has contested its recommendations in all but three. In almost every case, judges have had to launch legal proceedings to compel the provincial government to adhere to recommendations made by the independent committee.
Even Quebec Crown prosecutors did not obtain in 2020 what was recommended by a three-member independent committee. A majority of the blue-ribbon panel recommended sizable increases to shrink the gap that exists with counterparts in the rest of Canada. The committee recommended a 3.5 per cent hike for the following four years until 2022, plus a maximum of 1.75 per cent cost of living increases from 2020 until 2022 — a hike that would have reduced the 13.7 per cent disparity that currently exists between what Quebec Crown prosecutors now earn compared to the average Canadian counterparts. Instead the provincial government offered a 10 per cent increase over four years. The matter is now before the courts.
Quebec legal aid lawyers, who work under the Commission des services juridiques (CSJ), the provincial agency that oversees the legal aid system, have come to an agreement over the majority of non-monetary clauses, said Laurence Côté-Lebrun, a legal aid lawyer, one of 16 who works for the Gaspésie, Bas-Saint-Laurent (Lower Saint-Lawrence) and the Magdalen Islands.
“There are few elements left in dispute other than the remuneration,” said Côté-Lebrun. “Most of the non-monetary clauses have been settled, at least at the negotiating table. But we’ve been negotiating for two years, and we didn’t receive a salary offer until recently. This is rather disappointing as we have had numerous bargaining sessions with our employer who kept telling us that they did not have a mandate from the Treasury Board, as the funding of our organization depends on the Treasury Board. We are now waiting for another proposal from the Treasury Board.”
But spokesperson Fillion said that legal aid lawyers are not government employees, but rather employees of the CSJ, and that the government is not negotiating with legal aid lawyers. The Treasury Board has given the negotiating mandate to the CSJ, added Fillion. “In the last round of bargaining, the value of the agreement with the CSJ lawyers was equivalent to that of the public and parapublic sector agreements,” said Fillion. “The negotiation allowed the CSJ lawyers, as a result of compromises on their part, to move closer to the salaries of Crown prosecutors at the maximum of the salary scale.”
That’s not the way that Quebec’s permanent legal aid lawyers see it. Lambert-Boulianne does not understand why the Quebec government has decided to do an about-face, a stance that will lead to challenges with retaining personnel and recruiting new talent.
“It is also a question of principle,” said Lambert-Boulianne. “Why should the lawyer who is prosecuting be paid more than the lawyer defending the accused? There is no reason behind it. There is no justification.”
There is also a disjointedness in the government’s position, said Côté-Lebrun. She points out that the government has taken steps over the past year to establish specialized tribunals dealing with sexual and intimate partner violence and that it is in the midst of trying to improve the youth protection system. Those are laudable aims, added Côté-Lebrun, but it will indisputably lead to more work for legal aid lawyers who are already under strain trying to meet the workload they currently face.
“We are there for the people,” remarked Côté-Lebrun. “We serve people who are economically and socially vulnerable. These are people who need help. We are very important to the justice system. So from a coherence point of view, if we want legal professionals who are competent for the volume of cases we have, we have to have good salary conditions.”
There were approximately 204,000 claims for legal aid in fiscal 2020-2021, a dip from nearly 229,000 demands made in the preceding fiscal year, according to the CSJ’s latest annual report. The number of cases dealt with by CSJ legal aid lawyers dropped from 92,836 to 75,957 over the same timeframe. Nearly 35 per cent of the cases handled by CSJ legal aid lawyers dealt with criminal and penal matters, almost 13 per cent touched on family law issues, and the rest were civil matters.
The Quebec legal aid system is beset with major problems. Last year, an independent panel of experts called for sweeping reforms to Quebec’s administration of the legal aid system to simplify the process to seek legal aid. But those issues were not addressed at the bargaining table, said Lambert-Boulianne.
Quebec’s legal aid lawyers have yet to decide on how they are going to proceed with the work stoppages. It could be half-day walkouts or a one-day strike but the goal is to pressure the Quebec government in an election year, said Côté-Lebrun.