5. Conclusions and recommendations

5.1 Conclusions

5.1.1 Relevance

The JPIP and the AJA-PLEI support Justice Canada’s policy directions on justice-related issues, and are aligned with federal and departmental roles and priorities, such as increasing access to justice, strengthening the justice system’s response to family violence, increasing awareness of Public Legal Education Information, and revitalizing Indigenous laws.

The evaluation found that the JPIP and AJA-PLEI are relevant due to their capacity to address the needs of Canadians, including marginalized and vulnerable groups, in the areas of family violence, access to justice, and various other issues. The JPIP is responsive to urgent and emerging issues, particularly through its capacity to stay informed of such issues, and the increased flexibility offered by its General component to react quickly when urgent needs arise to support activities that align with the program’s objectives and terms and conditions.

5.1.2 Effectiveness

The JPIP and AJA-PLEI were effective in contributing to its intended outcomes. Through its funding, the Program has contributed to an increased capacity to build knowledge, awareness and understanding of justice issues by recipient organizations, particularly in terms of innovation, emerging and urgent issues, PLEI materials, and enhanced information/knowledge-based collaboration.

JPIP-funded projects have contributed to an increased awareness and knowledge of the justice system for Canadians in areas such as better legal information and services, accessibility, revitalization of Indigenous laws and legal traditions, and better knowledge of family justice and family violence. While not all JPIP-funded projects have a direct impact on the Canadian justice system, various activities, including training activities and partnerships built as part of funded projects have contributed to a strengthened legal framework.

Finally, through various components, the JPIP and AJA-PLEI supported an increased access to the justice system for Canadians, including marginalized and vulnerable groups, by supporting access to public legal education and information resources and services, the training of legal professional and stakeholders, and funding projects that specifically aimed to address justice-related issues faced by Indigenous peoples.

5.1.3 Efficiency

Overall, the JPIP and AJA-PLEI are efficiently managed due to flexible and multi-year funding, good CFPs and application processes (specifically in the case of JPIP), and reasonable reporting. The Program is also financially well managed, although recent years have seen some reprofiling, due to external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Some constraints were identified regarding parts of CFPs and application processes, data management and GBA Plus requirements at both the application and reporting stages. 

5.2 Recommendation

Recommendation: Building on its strengths, the JPIP should explore opportunities to increase communication and information-sharing with and between funding recipients (as an example, through recipients’ meetings), as well as opportunities to leverage the expertise of other groups within the Department.

Recommendation: Building on its strengths, the JPIP should explore opportunities to increase communication and information-sharing with and between funding recipients (as an example, through recipients’ meetings), as well as opportunities to leverage the expertise of other groups within the Department.

Expanding on the ad hoc recipients’ meeting that the JPIP has held in the past could enable the Program to better support and promote additional networking between funded organizations, potentially leading to increased collaboration and partnerships, and increasing organizations’ capacity to build knowledge and awareness of the Justice system.

Collaborating with other stakeholders within the Department could also represent an opportunity for the JPIP to further increase its monitoring of, and responsiveness to emerging and urgent issues, and could represent an opportunity to disseminate information on the funded organizations and projects to the Canadian public, potentially increasing their reach.