Background

In early 2024, the Department of Justice Canada (JUS) retained Community Legal Education Ontario/ Éducation juridique communautaire Ontario (CLEO) to research community justice help programs across Canada and summarize a selection of them in a table.

A growing body of research has discussed the vital role played by not-for-profit community-based organizations in helping people who turn to them with problems that may involve the law. The assistance provided by these non-legal organizations falls outside the formal justice system, and their role is often not understood and supported by institutions in the formal justice sector, even though there are often connections and collaborations between individuals and organizations across these sectors.

The purpose of the project is to increase the knowledge and understanding of this type of assistance – what we call “community justice help” – available to people in communities across Canada. The focus is on community organizations and supports that serve people living on low incomes. The second objective of the project is to provide the groundwork for the exploration of a national network or working group to connect and support this type of work.

For the purposes of this project, “community justice help” is defined as the support and assistance provided by non-profit community-based organizations, and the non-lawyer staff at those organizations, to whom people with law-related problems often turn for help.