The CBA is the largest national lawyer association in Canada. It represents 37,000 lawyers, judges, notaries, law teachers and students. Its annual conference was held at the end of August 2013 in Saskatoon, and special invitees and speakers were Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin, Justice Minister Peter MacKay and CBC's Peter Mansbridge.
Delegates at the
annual meeting of the Canadian Bar Association conference in Saskatoon (CBA) were discussing the merits of several proposed legal reforms, some of which derive from a new 54 page report by the CBA, titled Reaching Equal Justice, which was released at conference. The report pointed to severely unequal access to justice in Canada.
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Beverly McLachlin, Chief Justice
the Supreme Court of Canada, '
(Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press) |
Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin then spoke to this concern, saying that ensuring that Canadians are able to access the system, is the most pressing challenge facing the administration of justice in this country. She conveyed that peoples' lives are being ruined when they can't get access to justice. McLachlin said, "We know that there are a lot of needs. People just swallow their pain and their loss and live with it, I guess, in some unsatisfactory way feeling they can't get justice."
