Project Overview
Many Ontarians turn to the family justice system to resolve issues such as separation, parenting, and support. Despite reforms, the system remains difficult to navigate. Legal services are often too expensive, and as a result, many people represent themselves. At the same time, information about family law is spread across many organizations and websites. People frequently receive far more information than they can meaningfully use, and it is not always clear which resources are reliable or suited to their situation.
In these circumstances, legal information is often not enough. This challenge is even greater for people with low literacy, cognitive disabilities, language barriers, or those living in rural and remote communities. Some kinds of family problems—such as cases involving violence, mental health issues, or high debt—may also require legal representation in addition to online tools. In the LCO’s view, meaningful access to the family law system requires recognizing how these different characteristics and circumstances affect legal needs.
The LCO’s project concluded that improving access to family justice requires a more holistic and integrated approach. Family law problems are often deeply connected to other issues in people’s lives, such as housing, employment, and health. Effective entry points to the system need to reflect this, providing coordinated legal and non-legal supports so that people can access the right help at the right time.
Advisory Committee
The Advisory Committee members were:
- Suzanne Cadieux – City of Greater Sudbury, Ontario Works
- Patti Cross – Ontario Court of Justice
- Tracy Gagnon – Ontario Native Women’s Association
- Tam Goosen – Urban Alliance on Race Relations
- Louise Guertin – Clinique juridique grand nord
- Justice John Harper – Superior Court of Ontario
- Professor Ben Hovius – University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Law
- Susan Irwin – Rural Legal Services
- Lorna Kozmik – Toronto Police Services – Community Mobilization Unit
- Paul Lantz – Keewaytinok Native Legal Services
- Marianne Park – Consultant
- Anne Marie Predko – Ministry of the Attorney General
- Justice Robert Spence – Ontario Court of Justice
Key Recommendations
The LCO made several recommendations to create a more accessible, coordinated, and effective set of entry points into Ontario’s family justice system. Key reforms include:
1. Develop integrated, multidisciplinary family justice centres and networks
- Major stakeholders—including government, agencies, professional regulators, and non-profit organizations—should work together to design a model for comprehensive service centres or networks.
- This plan should identify which services need to be included, how to meet standards of accessibility and cultural responsiveness, how to integrate existing programs, and how such centres would be accredited.
- The overall goal is to bring legal, social, and community supports together so people can access the right help early and efficiently.
2. Build a long-term implementation and evaluation plan
- The strategy for creating these centres and networks should follow a “progressive realization” approach, recognizing that full implementation will take time.
- The plan should also include a clear method for evaluating how well the centres meet benchmarks for effective access, service coordination, and user experience.
3. Launch two pilot projects in Ontario
- These pilots should be designed using the benchmarks and lessons identified in the LCO’s report and evaluated to guide province-wide expansion.
- The Ontario government should support the creation of two pilot centres—one in a rural area and one in an urban area—to test and refine this service model.