Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS) has existed since 1971! It can't stop now!

Toronto’s community legal clinics provide essential services to low-income and marginalized individuals and families. They must remain rooted in local communities to have relevance for users. 

PCLS is Canada’s oldest and biggest legal aid clinic. Whatever happens to PCLS will have consequences throughout the city, even the country. The issues of poverty that people face in Parkdale can be found everywhere in the GTA, so we join Parkdale community members in calling for more and better clinics.

Yet the GTA Legal Clinics Transformation Project has stated it wants to replace 16 community clinics in the GTA with 3 mega service centres! This would mean that existing clinics -- with community roots and decades of history -- will be closed, and replaced with much larger clinics that will be much farther from users. This will have disastrous effects. Seniors, people with disabilities, those of us who work long and irregular hours, who cannot afford bus fare, who cannot find childcare, or are fleeing violent relationships will all be alienated from our lawyers. The Report suggests phone and internet intakes will improve access to justice, which shows the Report’s writers have never had to share private and traumatic details about their lives to strangers. The Report shows no accountability to Torontonians -- the individuals and community it claims to serve. 

Every community needs a legal clinic. PCLS often has long wait-times, since there are so many people who need a lawyer’s help -- their ODSP was denied, or their landlord is trying to evict them for no reason, or they are afraid of being deported. We in the community feel that PCLS understands our story, and know staff and students by their names. 

We trust clinics, because they have been working for us for years, and we want to continue working with it to make it even better -- yet the Vision Report only offers one "solution"! Before we embark on a path that could destroy amazing relationships and partnerships, there need to be meaningful conversations, town halls, public meetings, consultations, etc with Parkdale residents. It is too soon to even entertain an idea as drastic as merging all GTA clinics. There are much more feasible ways to improve GTA clinics. 

Thankfully, clinic mergers have only been recommended. I ask that you oppose a transformation that could leave your neighbours homeless, destitute, and scared. 

Do the right thing. Support Parkdale, support PCLS, stop the closures.

(Questions? Email concernedparkdale@gmail.com)