Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Doesn’t a crime need to be prosecuted / heard within a set timeframe? Do you see risk then that this could delay court proceedings to an extent that crimes may not even be able to be heard because they lapse beyond that timeframe and then no day in court is even had and the charged simply just goes free?

Tinfoil hat conspiracy here: Marlaina removes Legal Aid services so that people now have to represent themselves in court (instead of hiring a lawyer), which means the conviction rate is now higher because people suck at doing that, which means more people go to prison, which allows the UCP to 'justify' turning Alberta prisons into for-profit ones, similar to the United States and the preference of their twisted Republican overlords.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I’m surprised they didn’t get a bump based on the overwhelming victory by Nenshi.



https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...data-1.7253024

This strikes me as the most interesting data:

Since Nenshi's victory, the NDP has closed an eight-point Calgary gap in the March survey to four points.

But in Edmonton, long an NDP stronghold, the party's lead has deflated from 11 points to two points over the UCP, the poll suggests.

How much was Notley the reason for the NDP’s strong appeal in Edmonton?

[Ozy_Flame]

I think some of that might be having to build trust with Nenshi, and disrupting some of the core, classic NDP votes. Their traditional union base is located there. However, time will tell if they will come back. That doesn't mean they polled in favor of the UCP.

I think if Gil McGowan won it might have bumped up those Edmonton numbers, but that doesn't mean it would have had a positive effect in Calgary.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Muta

Tinfoil hat conspiracy here: Marlaina removes Legal Aid services so that people now have to represent themselves in court (instead of hiring a lawyer), which means the conviction rate is now higher because people suck at doing that, which means more people go to prison, which allows the UCP to 'justify' turning Alberta prisons into for-profit ones, similar to the United States and the preference of their twisted Republican overlords.

Interesting, but realistically why would a higher prison population provide more justification for privatizing the system? If they wanted to privatize why not just do it now? Are you suggesting they would want to show that they can't handle the rate of incarceration and as such need to turn over the system to private operators? Is that the play?

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I think some of that might be having to build trust with Nenshi, and disrupting some of the core, classic NDP votes. Their traditional union base is located there. However, time will tell if they will come back. That doesn't mean they polled in favor of the UCP.

I think if Gil McGowan won it might have bumped up those Edmonton numbers, but that doesn't mean it would have had a positive effect in Calgary.

Gil would have had the "who?" effect in Calgary.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Interesting, but realistically why would a higher prison population provide more justification for privatizing the system? If they wanted to privatize why not just do it now? Are you suggesting they would want to show that they can't handle the rate of incarceration and as such need to turn over the system to private operators? Is that the play?

I think in the US, it's the more people that are incarcerated, the more revenue the system generates. It's based solely on numbers, if I understand it correctly.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I think some of that might be having to build trust with Nenshi, and disrupting some of the core, classic NDP votes. Their traditional union base is located there. However, time will tell if they will come back. That doesn't mean they polled in favor of the UCP.

I think if Gil McGowan won it might have bumped up those Edmonton numbers, but that doesn't mean it would have had a positive effect in Calgary.

I think the bigger part is that most of the province doesn't know what to make of Nenshi. Outside Calgary, he's just a name. The same issue smacked the Alberta Party when they tried to haul Stephen Mandel out.

The values in Calgary seem reasonable as the polled community would know who he is and what he would stand for. After winning the popular vote 49-48% there in 2023, it seems reasonable for a slight UCP lead after the announcement of a surplus.

I would suspect a Nenshi that starts explaining his platform and making inroads as a provincial politician will get better results.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Muta

Tinfoil hat conspiracy here: Marlaina removes Legal Aid services so that people now have to represent themselves in court (instead of hiring a lawyer), which means the conviction rate is now higher because people suck at doing that, which means more people go to prison, which allows the UCP to 'justify' turning Alberta prisons into for-profit ones, similar to the United States and the preference of their twisted Republican overlords.

Prefacing it as a tin-foil conspiracy doesn’t make this any better than a non-foil one. Why even post this?

[Muta]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Prefacing it as a tin-foil conspiracy doesn’t make this any better than a non-foil one. Why even post this?

Because it's a silly / fun post which isn't meant to be taken seriously? Calm your tits dude, yikes.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

How much was Notley the reason for the NDP’s strong appeal in Edmonton?

I don't think it was Notley per-se, but the NDP has strong support in Edmonton because they are the NDP.

Reading through the past months of posts there is a lot of talk of how to stop the UCP. Change names, change colours, separate from the national NDP, move to more centrist policies.

That resonates with Calgary much more than Edmonton. As an actual NDPer, to me it isn't about stopping the UCP anymore than it was about stopping the PCs. It is about supporting a party who has the same ideals and values that I have.

And while Nenshi might create that more central idealism and broader appeal, he isn't a born and bled NDPer, he is an outsider who might change the party away from those ideals.

People who supported the NDP when there was only 1 MLA did it because they believed in the ideals of the party. Nenshi moving in is a threat to that.

If I wasn't BC bound next month, I would probably still vote for him because the UCP are that bad - but I can also understand how a lot of people who were committed to vote NDP might just be undecided until he proves whether he is here for the NDP or he is here to stop the UCP - because those are not necessarily the same goals.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by Muta

Tinfoil hat conspiracy here: Marlaina removes Legal Aid services so that people now have to represent themselves in court (instead of hiring a lawyer), which means the conviction rate is now higher because people suck at doing that, which means more people go to prison, which allows the UCP to 'justify' turning Alberta prisons into for-profit ones, similar to the United States and the preference of their twisted Republican overlords.

And they can also claim they are doing something to improve the housing crisis. Win, win!

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Muta

Tinfoil hat conspiracy here: Marlaina removes Legal Aid services so that people now have to represent themselves in court (instead of hiring a lawyer), which means the conviction rate is now higher because people suck at doing that, which means more people go to prison, which allows the UCP to 'justify' turning Alberta prisons into for-profit ones, similar to the United States and the preference of their twisted Republican overlords.

Or getting ready for "treatment centers" where they force (arrest) drug users off the street and into treatment (confinement).

[MBates]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Thanks! Always amazing info from you and more or less answered my question/ devils advocate point. Couple follow ups;

What do you see the logical outcome of this is then? Basically, if a person is charged with a crime and legal aide no longer exists, I (think) what you’re saying is that the court still has to somehow arrange for a defense attorney if a defendant cannot afford one (is this right?) and, if so, is that the responsibility of the judge / court clerks or the defendant to demonstrate they can’t afford a lawyer to the judge instead of this other independent body that administered all of that?

Doesn’t a crime need to be prosecuted / heard within a set timeframe? Do you see risk then that this could delay court proceedings to an extent that crimes may not even be able to be heard because they lapse beyond that timeframe and then no day in court is even had and the charged simply just goes free?

These are fairly complicated issues but the short(ish) answers are:

1. In a world where there was no formal legal aid program, then every individual would have to apply to the court seeking state-funded counsel. In very general terms, if they establish their liberty or security of the person is at stake and they cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer then they will likely get a court order which compels the government to fund counsel. If there is no risk of jail time or if an individual can represent themselves just fine without a lawyer, they could still potentially be denied state-funded counsel.

In the last two fiscal years reported, Legal Aid Alberta [LAA] issued 52,712 and 59,599 Certificates respectively (this is not just criminal but all areas covered including family, immigration etc). I have not found a stat showing how many more applications they received but were denied coverage. Even if you ignore the rejected applications, I think it states the obvious that the justice system would very swiftly fail if it had to incorporate an extra 50,000 to 60,000 in-court applications annually.

2. If even a fraction of the above numbers ended up in court there would be a relative flood of criminal cases tossed for unreasonable delay. The factual basis to file stay applications would exist in a matter of weeks (available offered court dates for trials would be so far out as the system would become fully booked. Currently I have some trial time booked as far out as October of 2025, and that is with the system working before this whole issue arose).

If one assumes even the current government can understand it would by necessity have to replace the current legal aid administration with some Ministerial commanded alternative, the obvious move here is they are intending to cut as deep as they can.

For every criminal defendant represented by a legal aid funded lawyer that you manage to turn into a self-represented person you can fairly reliably double the amount of court time required to process that case. I would go so far as to say that is close to a standard operating procedure in our criminal court system.

EVERYONE in the system wants accused people who are represented by counsel. Judge, prosecutor, clerk, sheriff...all of those jobs are made significantly more difficult to do in the vast majority of cases with a self-represented accused.

The CBA has provided studies which estimate that every $1 dollar invested in front line legal aid yields far more in return on investment (full disclosure I have been part of preparing various access to justice CBA reports over the years).

https://twitter.com/user/status/1808640009635049969

A properly run legal aid system brings massive savings in both justice and health systems - and creates better outcomes for all in the vast majority of cases. It is the one and probably the only area where a public service can actually make you huge net budget savings by properly increasing your expenditures.

Now, with all of that, do I think LAA is running a perfect program? Far from it. Should the Minister keep track of what is going on to prevent abuse and waste? Of course.

But here's the thing...the Governance Agreement they just walked away from and kickstarted this whole gong show already had an express term that at any time it wanted the Minister could subject the full financials of LAA to inquiry by the Auditor General or a qualified financial professional.

https://open.alberta.ca/publications...ting-legal-aid

The idea the agreement had to be shredded because somehow LAA was operating wastefully and out of control and could not be properly governed by the Minister is dubious. Incidentally, LAA has an accomplished professional Board and publishes annual audited financials and a very detailed annual report.

https://www.legalaid.ab.ca/about/

So if the Minister continues to claim that 'ballooning costs' that he cannot understand are why all of this chaos is now needed, I sure hope someone asks him whether he has read all of the available information and why he did not send in the Auditor General as was his power under the existing agreement.

Oh wait, maybe he did not do that because it was last done in 2020...and well...LAA passed on the exact issues the Minister is now railing about [my emphasis added]:

At a high level, this analysis estimated the total costs avoided to the justice system in Alberta by LAA in 2017–2018 was approximately $131,656,000, and the estimated benefit of LAA to the justice system for every $1 spent was $1.36.

and

The department implemented our recommendation to ensure there are processes in place to measure, monitor and report on the quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of publicly funded legal aid services.

A review of documents provided by the department show it and LAA have worked together to develop and implement key performance indicators/performance measures to assess the functioning of the legal aid system.

As of December 2019, there are 14 measures approved and in place. LAA reports to the department monthly or annually, depending on the measure. Our review of recent LAA reporting to the department confirmed required performance measures reporting is being done.

https://www.oag.ab.ca/reports/oag-ju...-aoi-nov-2020/

[GullFoss]

Naheed Nenshi's Alberta NDP still trailing governing UCP by 14 points in new survey

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...data-1.7253024


Sounds about right to me

[GullFoss]

Originally Posted by MBates

I disagree with your assertion that I "won't like it" responding to a tired and uninformed shot at the mythical evil legal aid lawyers getting unreasonably wealthy (by offering their services to help disadvantaged people for a fraction of what they could offer the same services on the open market). I am happy to help correct misinformation about the justice system and the legal profession. I like to think it is kind of what I do by posting here.

Technically speaking the government is not obligated to provide any particular legal aid program (it is one of the few places where public money spent returns multiples back in return on investment though...so having a sophisticated arms-length program is invaluable to the justice system remaining functional).

What the government is obligated to do in many criminal and other cases where liberty and security of the person interests are at stake is to provide state-funded legal counsel.

So, if the government dismantles a reasonably well-running legal aid program they will still be on the hook for paying for most of the same legal services, but now a highly inefficient and resource intensive case by case litigation process (using actual court time and government lawyers who would otherwise be doing other work) will replace the current administrative out of court legal aid process.

It will cost the taxpayer far more more in direct legal fees, unnecessarily waste vast amounts of court time, delay all civil and family matters while criminal matters draw an even more inordinate share of the available resources, and cause many criminal lawyers' businesses to suffer (and encourage them to leave the practice area and potentially the province - though that very last part is hard to assess how significant of a risk that is).

All for no apparent reason.

As to the comment about legal aid being able to somehow just charge whatever it wants to the government for legal fees, that is just not how anything works.

There are financial eligibility guidelines that severely limit how many people can qualify for legal aid, a set tariff of fees that can be charged by lawyers which is all subject to review and audit, and after the massive raise that took job action to get, the notional hourly rate that is allowed to be charged (where the tariff even allows hourly billing which is almost never) is $125. Keep in mind of course, from that $125 per hour a lawyer must pay all of the costs of running a highly regulated and costly to operate small business. In many circumstances, once all of the unpaid work is factored in, a lawyer working on a legal aid certificate will fail to make minimum wage.

So to be clear, Legal Aid Alberta is an arms length administrator of the government program. The government funds legal aid (up until now through an orderly Governance Agreement that sets out rights and responsibilities of the parties) and then Legal Aid Alberta takes care of all the intake, eligibility assessments, issuing coverage certificates, maintaining a mix of staff counsel and a roster of private lawyers willing to actually do the work to help the clients who qualify etc, and reports back to the Minister and is subject to the oversight of the Auditor General.

There was absolutely no missing oversight power that the government suddenly needed to secure to protect the taxpayer. The Minister already had it...but subject to basic aspects of fairness including the independence of Legal Aid Alberta to make decisions free from being dictated by the Minister (who of course is the party litigating one side of criminal and most other cases where liberty and security of the person interests are at issue).

It remains to be seen where this impasse goes, but the volume of legal cases that are very efficiently processed through the system every day by lawyers being organized through Legal Aid Alberta is staggering. The system simply cannot function if that flow is stopped.

I don't understand how changing the funding system makes Legal Aid Alberta unviable. They have an operating surplus...

Much ado about nothing imo

[Ozy_Flame]

That is some mighty early chest thumping for an election 3.5 years out and a party leader who hasn't even been elected to a riding let alone test his mettle as Opposition Leader in the Leg yet. And that's before both Edmonton and rural Alberta get a better look at Nenshi, before he releases his policies and plans, and before he divorces from the federal NDP.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

Naheed Nenshi's Alberta NDP still trailing governing UCP by 14 points in new survey

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...data-1.7253024


Sounds about right to me

I think the interesting number in that poll is only 25% of committed federal NDP voters are opposed to a split from the federal party.

Thats a pretty low consequence to make the move.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

I don't understand how changing the funding system makes Legal Aid Alberta unviable. They have an operating surplus...

Much ado about nothing imo

Alberta also ran a $4.3B surplus this last fiscal year, so we have decided to save even more, by abolishing government.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by MBates

I disagree with your assertion that I "won't like it" responding to a tired and uninformed shot at the mythical evil legal aid lawyers getting unreasonably wealthy (by offering their services to help disadvantaged people for a fraction of what they could offer the same services on the open market). I am happy to help correct misinformation about the justice system and the legal profession. I like to think it is kind of what I do by posting here.

Technically speaking the government is not obligated to provide any particular legal aid program (it is one of the few places where public money spent returns multiples back in return on investment though...so having a sophisticated arms-length program is invaluable to the justice system remaining functional).

What the government is obligated to do in many criminal and other cases where liberty and security of the person interests are at stake is to provide state-funded legal counsel.

So, if the government dismantles a reasonably well-running legal aid program they will still be on the hook for paying for most of the same legal services, but now a highly inefficient and resource intensive case by case litigation process (using actual court time and government lawyers who would otherwise be doing other work) will replace the current administrative out of court legal aid process.

It will cost the taxpayer far more more in direct legal fees, unnecessarily waste vast amounts of court time, delay all civil and family matters while criminal matters draw an even more inordinate share of the available resources, and cause many criminal lawyers' businesses to suffer (and encourage them to leave the practice area and potentially the province - though that very last part is hard to assess how significant of a risk that is).

All for no apparent reason.

As to the comment about legal aid being able to somehow just charge whatever it wants to the government for legal fees, that is just not how anything works.

There are financial eligibility guidelines that severely limit how many people can qualify for legal aid, a set tariff of fees that can be charged by lawyers which is all subject to review and audit, and after the massive raise that took job action to get, the notional hourly rate that is allowed to be charged (where the tariff even allows hourly billing which is almost never) is $125. Keep in mind of course, from that $125 per hour a lawyer must pay all of the costs of running a highly regulated and costly to operate small business. In many circumstances, once all of the unpaid work is factored in, a lawyer working on a legal aid certificate will fail to make minimum wage.

So to be clear, Legal Aid Alberta is an arms length administrator of the government program. The government funds legal aid (up until now through an orderly Governance Agreement that sets out rights and responsibilities of the parties) and then Legal Aid Alberta takes care of all the intake, eligibility assessments, issuing coverage certificates, maintaining a mix of staff counsel and a roster of private lawyers willing to actually do the work to help the clients who qualify etc, and reports back to the Minister and is subject to the oversight of the Auditor General.

There was absolutely no missing oversight power that the government suddenly needed to secure to protect the taxpayer. The Minister already had it...but subject to basic aspects of fairness including the independence of Legal Aid Alberta to make decisions free from being dictated by the Minister (who of course is the party litigating one side of criminal and most other cases where liberty and security of the person interests are at issue).

It remains to be seen where this impasse goes, but the volume of legal cases that are very efficiently processed through the system every day by lawyers being organized through Legal Aid Alberta is staggering. The system simply cannot function if that flow is stopped.

Originally Posted by GullFoss

I don't understand how changing the funding system makes Legal Aid Alberta unviable. They have an operating surplus...

Much ado about nothing imo

Hmmm. How to choose between these two opinions? I can’t tell if one is based on research, data and experience, and the other is talking out of his ass.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

I don't understand

Fixed

Sometimes it's ok to listen to people that have a more knowledge on a topic (bro is a lawyer), and potentially smarter (bro seems smart AF)