Evaluation of the Legal Aid Program

1. Introduction

The Legal Aid Program (the Program) manages the federal contribution to legal aid in Canada through its five components:

The Program’s primary objective is to “enable the provinces and territories and their legal aid plans to deliver criminal legal aid (and criminal and civil legal aid in the territories) to economically disadvantaged persons facing the likelihood of incarceration, and for youth pursuant to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, through the provision of contribution funding” (Department of Justice Canada, 2007).

This document constitutes the final report for the evaluation of the federal Legal Aid Program.

1.1. Scope and Objectives of the Evaluation

This evaluation was completed in accordance with the Treasury Board Secretariat’s 2009 Policy on Evaluation, which requires departments to evaluate all direct program spending on a five-year cycle. Footnote 3 The evaluation covers the relevance of the Program in terms of whether there is a continued need for the Program, its alignment with federal priorities and departmental strategic outcomes, and its alignment with federal roles and responsibilities. The Program evaluation also addresses the impact and value of the federal investment in legal aid.

The scope of the evaluation includes activities undertaken by the Program between fiscal years 2012-13 and 2015-16.

The evaluation was conducted between October 2015 and June 2016. The Evaluation Division of the Department of Justice Canada (the Department) directed the evaluation, with the support of an Evaluation Advisory Group composed of representatives from the Legal Aid Directorate (LAD), a representative from the Policy Implementation Directorate (PID), and representatives from the PWG.

1.2. Structure of the Report

This report contains five sections, including this introduction. Section 2 provides a description of the Legal Aid Program. Section 3 describes the methodology used to address the set of evaluation issues and questions. Section 4 summarizes the key findings that have emerged from the data collection process, and Section 5 provides the overall evaluation conclusions.