The Canadian Bar Association's BC branch released a series of recommendations for the government
The British Columbia branch of the Canadian Bar Association released its 2025 Agenda for Justice on Tuesday, which includes a series of recommendations for the provincial government to improve BC’s legal system and better address legal needs.
“What we're really aiming for is to have an opportunity to collaborate with government on making our legal and justice systems more accessible, equitable, and fair,” CBABC president Lee Nevens told Canadian Lawyer.
“We think that our members are really well placed… to help government on that,” Nevens adds. “We look forward to being able to collaborate.”
The report’s recommendations include more funding for legal services that serve low-income or otherwise marginalized individuals, streamlining court services, improving court infrastructure, and legislative changes.
Nevens says that addressing the high cost of legal services is a key priority among the report's many recommendations.
The report notes, for example, that BC is the only province in Canada that does not offer legal aid for routine family law matters like divorce, parenting disputes, and spousal and child support. In BC, family law legal aid is only available in cases that involve intimate partner violence, denial of access to children, or safety threats.
The CBABC recommended expanding legal aid coverage to families looking for help with routine family law matters and ensuring that funding fully covers both in-court and out-of-court resolutions.
The report also suggested more funding for legal aid that caters to 2SLGBTQIA individuals, who often have a higher need for legal services because they face a disproportionate amount of discrimination. Funding that ensures rural and Indigenous communities have access to high-speed internet, computer equipment, and technology training would also improve those communities’ access to court and justice services, the report said.
The CBABC recommended multiple court updates. In BC, family law matters can be heard in several courts, including the Provincial Court of BC and the BC Supreme Court. The former handles the majority of family law cases in the province but does not have jurisdiction over the division of assets and debts. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has jurisdiction over all family law issues but is less accessible because it has fewer lower locations and more complex procedures.
The CBABC’s report advocated for creating a unified family court that could hear all family law matters, simplifying the legal process for litigants. It also suggested creating infrastructure that would allow people to attend routine pre-trial hearings virtually.
In 2019, BC passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which requires the provincial government to align its laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The CBABC report urged the BC government to collaborate with Indigenous communities to review and update provincial laws.
The report also advised the provincial government to promote lawyers’ independence by amending the Legal Professions Act, which the legislature passed last year amid criticisms from legal organizations. The CBABC previously called the law “problematic.” Currently being challenged by multiple lawsuits, the law aims to replace the Law Society of British Columbia with a single regulatory body to oversee lawyers, notaries, and paralegals.
“Our position is that we do support legal regulators for lawyers, notaries, and paralegals and the expansion of legal service providers, as long as there are safeguards in place to ensure that lawyers are independent of government and that we are self-regulated,” Nevens said.
The CBABC hasn’t drafted any proposed amendments, but Nevens said the organization is open to working with the provincial government. “If they approached us and wanted to collaborate on how the act can be changed to further the independence of the legal profession, we’d be happy to work with them,” they said.
