Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Trauma-Informed Judicial Practice Meets Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Compassionate Written Judgments In Child Protection Cases, Shelley Kierstead

All Papers

Society has become acutely aware that trauma arises from many life events and manifests in a range of physical and psychological symptoms. The legal community is increasingly recognizing that clients living with trauma effects would be much better served with trauma-informed services. While much of the emerging literature in the legal field focuses on lawyers’ work, there is growing recognition that judges can also play a role in responding effectively to trauma.

In child protection cases, trauma frequently exists at different yet related levels – for the child who is the subject of protection proceedings, and for one or more …

Looking Through Trusts, Adam S. Hofri, Mark Bennett

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

As everyone knows, trusts are often used to avoid or subvert different rules of law. To combat such avoidance, jurisdictions enacted anti-avoidance rules; yet many of these rules do not fully prevent trusts-based avoidance, or in some cases reflect some jurisdictions’ acceptance of such avoidance. We review the anti-avoidance rules applied by Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand to try and stymie trusts-based avoidance in three subject areas: distribution of family property on divorce or separation, taxation of income accrued in settlor-controlled trusts, and means-tested eligibility for welfare benefits. We find that anti-avoidance doctrines are often less …

Eligible Non-Participation In Canadian Social Welfare Programs, Stephanie Ben-Ishai, Jennifer Robson, Saul Schwartz

Articles & Book Chapters

To be effective in meeting their policy or political goals, social programs must reach the intended target groups. Many social programs, however, have low take-up rates. We examine three illustrative federal programs targeted to lower income Canadians and note that efforts by government agencies to serve all they intend to serve vary considerably. In this paper we discuss the sources of eligible non-participation and present estimates of its extent. We point out that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) plays a critical role in all three Canadian social welfare programs. We find that the legislative framework governing the CRA may be …

Issue 1: Reimagining Overrepresentation Research: Critical Reflections On Researching The Overrepresentation Of First Nations Children In The Child Welfare System, Vandna Sinha, Ashleigh Delaye, Brittany Orav-Lakaski

Journal of Law and Social Policy

This paper builds on the experiences of the first author in doing research on the overrepresentation of First Nations children in child welfare systems in Canada. Six lessons are presented: (1) overrepresentation is an inherently quantitative construct; (2) overrepresentation is an inherently comparative construct; (3) a focus on overrepresentation draws attention to the needs of specific groups, but may obscure the need for broader systemic reform; (4) available data relies on, but incompletely represents, decision-maker perspectives; (5) available data emphasizes point-in-time decisions; and (6) ambiguity in data must be very clearly acknowledged. Building on discussion of these lessons, we explore …

Do Us Proud: Poor Women Claiming Adjudicative Space At Cesr, Emily Paradis

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Claiming Our Rights was a feminist participatory action research project based at Sistering, a Toronto drop-in for women facing homelessness. At weekly meetings over the course of eighteen months, members learned about social and economic rights, gave testimony on their lived experiences, and undertook actions to claim their rights. Among other initiatives, the group—which members named FORWARD—contributed a report on women’s homelessness to the 2006 review of Canada by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This paper draws upon observations of the group’s process and in-depth interviews with participants to assess this human rights education methodology. …

The Role Of Technology In The Provision Of Poverty Law Services, Lenny Abramowicz

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Provides a cross-jurisdictional examination of how technology has been used in legal aid and community legal clinics and questions whether technology has become the tool or the master in the provision of legal aid services. Explores whether technology is playing a positive or negative role in community legal aid clinics by examining the purpose and work of community clinics, and how technology can help or impede the realization of that purpose.

"No Cherries Grow On Our Trees": A Social Policy Research Paper For The Take Action Project, A Public Policy Initiative To Address Women’S Poverty And Violence Against Women, Wendy Komiotis, Nora Currie, Janet Mosher

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

This is a project about women, not as a homogeneous and objectified category, but about women as agents whose lives are shaped by the multiple dimensions of their identities, including their Aboriginal status, age, class, disability, race, sexual orientation, gender identity and status (be it family, immigration, or health). It is a project that speaks to the realities of women’s lives, in particular the harsh realities of poverty and violence. It is also a project about you. Given the high rates of both poverty and violence, many of you will share these experiences. Many of you may be one job, …

From Mothers' Allowance To Mothers Need Not Apply: Canadian Welfare Law As Liberal And Neo-Liberal Reforms, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In this paper we examine changes in the form and content of Canadian welfare law through a historical, feminist lens using the exemplar of mother-headed families. Our analysis of how the state dealt with sole support mothers in several provinces throughout the twentieth century reveals important continuities, as well as discontinuities, between the past and the present that have shaped and reshaped the lives and experiences of poor women and their children. In doing so, it helps to illuminate how they have been rendered "undeserving" or "never deserving" with the neo-liberal (re)formation of the Keynesian state in Canada.

Welfare Fraud: The Constitution Of Social Assistance As Crime, Janet E. Mosher

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

No abstract provided.

Access To Justice For A New Century: The Way Forward, Julia H. Bass, W. A. Bogart, Frederick H. Zemans

Books

This book is a timely addition to the literature on access to justice. The book's essays address all aspects of the topic, including differing views on the meaning of access to justice; ways to improve access to legal services; litigation and its role in achieving social justice; and the roles of lawyers, citizens, and legal insitutions.

Access to Justice for a New Century is based on papers given at an international symposium presented by the Law Society of Upper Canada, sponsored by the Law Foundation of Ontario.

Boldly Going Where No Law Has Gone Before: Call Centres, Intake Scripts, Database Fields, And Discretionary Justice In Social Assistance, Lorne Sossin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article focuses on the response of public law to bureaucratic disentitlement. Whether eligibility decisions for social welfare benefits are made on the basis of a face to face interview or telephone intake screening at a call centre, whether the questions are onerous for vulnerable applicants to answer, whether the bureaucratic hurdles can reasonably be surmounted or lead to the de facto exclusion of otherwise eligible applicants, all constitute questions which should be fundamentally intertwined with the question of whether a discretionary decision is legally valid. This is so not only because service delivery models and administrative design may determine …

Welfare Law, Welfare Fraud And The Moral Regulation Of The 'Never Deserving' Poor, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn

Articles & Book Chapters

The dismantling and restructuring of Keynesian social security programmes have impacted disproportionately on women, especially lone parent mothers, and shifted public discourse and social images from welfare fraud to welfare as fraud, thereby linking poverty, welfare and crime. This article analyzes the current, inordinate focus on 'welfare cheats'. The criminalization of poverty raises theoretical and empirical questions related to regulation, control, and the relationship between them at particular historical moments. Moral regulation scholars working within post-structuralist and post-modern frameworks have developed an influential approach to these issues,however, we situate ourselves in a different stream of critical socio-legal studies that takes …

The Empire Of The Lone Mother: Parental Rights, Child Welfare Law, And State Restructuring, Hester Lessard

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article uses the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in G.(J.) v. New Brunswick to frame a discussion of the historical and ideological character of Canadian child welfare regimes on the nature and experience of women’s citizenship within the liberal political order and, in particular, within the current neo-liberal restructuring of welfare provision. The article also analyzes traditional understandings of the political character of child welfare in terms of state intervention and non-intervention, by placing the state ordering of parent-child relations in the context of larger issues of colonialism, gendered parenting discourses, and the linkage between child neglect and poverty. …

The Dream Is Still Alive: Twenty-Five Years Of Parkdale Community Legal Services And The Osgoode Hall Law School Intensive Program In Poverty Law, Frederick H. Zemans

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Over twenty-five years have passed since Parkdale Community Legal Services opened its doors in Toronto, changing the face of poverty law and clinical legal education in Ontario. This article details the formative years of the Parkdale clinic and its ongoing partnership with Osgoode Hall Law School. Despite initial opposition from the legal profession the clinic has survived, evolving into an innovative educational tool and delivery model of legal services. The clinic has become an essential component of the mixed Ontario legal aid system and a pattern for other clinics and clinical education programs in Canada. This article documents the considerations …

Twenty-Five Years Of Dynamic Tension: The Parkdale Community Legal Services Experience, Shelley A.M. Gavigan

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Parkdale Community Legal Services has been the site of initiatives, challenges, and historic accomplishments in the areas of community-based poverty law, community organizing and law reform, and clinical legal education. In this article, the author takes the occasion of the clinic's twenty-fifth anniversary to consider some of the events and issues that shaped Parkdale's history. Drawing on a range of sources, including evaluations and reports, student writing, and scholarly publications, the author examines the issues and debates that PCLS has sparked at Osgoode Hall Law School, and some of the ground it has broken more generally in its work. The …

The Ellis Archives-1972 To 1981: An Early View From The Parkdale Trenches, S. Ronald Ellis

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The author was intimately involved with PCLS from 1972 to 1981. Significant extracts from a recently uncovered, personal horde of archival materials--framed by the author's description and explication of the materials' original context--provide old perspectives on a wide range of surprisingly current issues--perspectives which the author believes readers will find still useful. The subject matter includes: the private bar's role in the ultimate success of PCLS and the clinic system; legal aid services; the bar's role in the legal aid system; the need for customized legal services in low-income communities; the role and operation of community based legal clinics; a …

The Demystification Of Legal Discourse: Reconceiving The Role Of The Poverty Lawyer As Agent Of The Poor, Cherie Robertson

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

By employing traditional methods of legal representation when acting on behalf of those living in poverty, lawyers act to perpetuate the disempowerment of poor people.. While the systemic barriers confronting the poor must be addressed, so too must the power of the poor to help themselves through organization and resistance. The task of the poverty lawyer committed to facilitating the agency of the poor is made difficult by the exclusivity and formalism of legal discourse, the constraints of the Rules of Professional Conduct, and by traditional understandings of the appropriate role of lawyers. However, a reconceptualization of the role of …

The Legal Advocate And The Questionably Competent Client In The Context Of A Poverty Law Clinic, Diana A. Romano

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Advocates representing the poor must, above all, take into account the extreme vulnerability of their clients. This challenge is heightened where one suspects that a client may lack the capacity to provide appropriate instructions. This article considers the issue of how competency should be defined and the options available where incompetency is determined. Ultimately, advocacy must include personal empowerment as well as legal representation.

The Spousal Assault Policy: A Critical Analysis, Leah Rachin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the complex relationship between PCLS's spousal assault policy and the clinic's mandate to practice poverty law. The author addresses the conflict which arises from the clinic's attempt to reconcile two goals-access to justice for all members of Parkdale's poor community and advocacy in the area of violence against women. The article also examines whether poverty can serve as a catalyst for violent behaviour or whether such a hypothesis is based on classist myths and assumptions. Ultimately, the author concludes that if battering can be linked to poverty, then PCLS (as a poverty law clinic) has an obligation …

Safe At Home: Protecting Female Tenants From Violence, Lori A. Pope

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article deals with the tension for legal aid clinics between a policy of not representing landlords and a policy of acting for abused women rather than their alleged abusers. Many women face violence where they live, which can jeopardize their tenancies. To combat the resulting legal problems effectively, clinics may need to work indirectly or even directly for landlords. Clinics ought also to consider lobbying for changes to legislation to allow tenants to take action directly against other tenants who threaten their safety. Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS), which led the way for other clinics in their adoption of …

The Perils Of Poverty: Prostitutes' Rights, Police Misconduct, And Poverty Law, Ray Kuszelewski, Dianne L. Martin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article is divided in two parts. In Part I, Ray Kuszelewski details the history of setbacks in representing street prostitutes faced by community-based initiatives at Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS). It is a personal, anecdotal, account of the clinic's evolutionary role in tackling the perils of poverty for street prostitutes. In Part II, Dianne Martin complements the first section by addressing the specific problem of police misconduct. The commentary is historical and theoretical in examining prior efforts at reform and argues for the development of a new, collaborative approach. The context is local and particularized in a community legal …

Clinics In A Cold Climate: Community Law Centres In England And Wales, Roger Smith

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Legal aid clinics in England and Wales, known as law centres, have struggled since they were set up in the early 1970s. They overcame the initial protests of the private profession, which saw the centres as competition, and established an important presence in social welfare law during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1986, the government began implementing financial cuts to the system. Over the next decade, the increased cuts led to a race towards "contract culture" and the introduction of "franchising" within the legal aid system. The implications of fiscal restraint on the efficiency and the quality of the service …

Welfare Reform In The United States, Joel F. Handler

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Advanced countries that are experiencing high unemployment are reconsidering their generous welfare states in light of the American experience. This article sets forth a summary of the principles of the U.S. welfare reform -particularly enforcing work requirements by time-limited welfare-as well as the assumptions, including, principally, that welfare destroys work incentives and that jobs are available for those who want to work. In fact, most welfare recipients have extensive connections to the labour market, but cannot survive on either jobs or welfare. If the reforms are carried out as intended, severe hardship will result. The predicted outcome is that most …

Welfare State Crime In Canada: The Politics Of Tax Evasion In The 1980s, Lorne Sossin

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper considers the phenomenon of tax evasion in the 1980s in Canada as an outgrowth of a crisis in the welfare state. The lack of social protest over the high incidence of tax evasion among the wealthiest stratum of Canadian individuals and corporations is, on this view, linked to the transformation of politicized citizens into depoliticized clients. Tax evasion, along with legal tax avoidance both proliferated in the 1980s which reflects the convergence of a number of events including the increase in use of tax expenditures, the decreasing emphasis on enforcement in tax administration, the rise of neoconservatism and, …