Shakespeare goes to Scotland

The past, present and future of law reform in Canada

“…205 A separate research board advises on projects. 206 The LCO has an executive director and small in-house staff, supplemented by seconded counsel-in-residence and by law student volunteers from Ontario's law schools. 207 The Commission's aims evince a focus on access to justice, and a perspective encouraging of scholarly contributions; its mandate is to: make the legal system more relevant, accessible and efficient; simplify or clarify the law; use technology to increase access to justice; stimulate critical debate about law; and promote scholarly legal research.…”

“…259 How can commissions manage this continual threat, whilst maintaining independence from government? 260 The Canadian experience is notable in that the commission created in 1967 in the country's most fiscally conservative jurisdiction did not follow the mould used elsewhere of a pure government creature: Alberta's commission was a joint venture with the Province's law society and legal academy. Later, when the two largest common law provinces, Ontario and British Columbia, lost their law commissions as welfarism gave way to retrenchment, they re-created commissions patterned broadly on the ALRI model.…”

“…261 This diversification could indeed help commissions survive the loss of any one support-group. 262 Presently, all three joint venture commissions remain active, and significantly better resourced than the surviving Canadian traditional commissions.…”

“…283 Within this reform network, commissions would wish to develop strong collaborative working relationships with a plurality of other players (such as ministries of justice, law societies, the academy and the umbrella reform associations) on matters either common or complementary, as we increasingly do see with the subsisting Canadian commissions. 284 And commissions would aim to co-opt other subject-constituencies (such as citizens 285 and affected groups), as, for example, is evident through current commissions' expanding consultation processes, yet controlling these interactions to prevent particular groups from subverting public interest law reform into special interest policy agendas. 286 Within this law reform network, commissions as institutions specifically designed for and dedicated to the cause, should be the hub, not a spare part for use when all else fails, as the OLRC was constrained in later years.…”