Reuters news service is predicting that Canadian unemployment rates will reach an 11-year high rate in June at 8.7%, about 35,000 net lost jobs in the month: http://snipurl.com/mf2pi. This follows an increase in EI claims reported in the last quarter. Statistics Canada will release June unemployment figures on Friday at the end of this week.

The B.C. Attorney General has just reduced court fees for the B.C. Supreme Court in a bid to improve access to justice:
http://snipurl.com/mc6kn.

Certainly, these fee changes make justice more accessible. But, consider these two points; First, only a fraction of cases that are filed in Supreme Court will make it to trial. The vast majority of cases won’t benefit from fee eliminated for the first three days of trial. Second, the majority of civil disputes are not handled by the courts, but are resolved privately through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration. When you combine these two points, these fee reductions won’t reduce the cost of justice for the vast majority of civil disputes in Canada.

This is still a good development and we at FWC welcome it. Anything that reduces the cost of justice is good for Canadians. But, even the B.C. Justice Review Task Force, the Canadian Bar Association, Law Societies, and provincial bar associations across the country have identified the cost of lawyers fees as being the largest barrier to justice. These recent fee reductions won’t change the fees lawyers charge and will have only a small impact on a total litigation fee since court costs form a small part of dispute resolution costs.

We here at FiredWithoutCause.com still believe that the solution to improving access to justice will be to find new business models for Canadians to get legal information at a lower cost.