CUPE is calling for the Saskatchewan government to expand eligibility criteria for access to Legal Aid and to increase funding to family law so more resources can be put towards keeping families together.

Julia Quigley, president of CUPE Local 1949 says, “As it stands, you basically have to be on social assistance to qualify for a lawyer. By expanding eligibility, we could help more people get their kids back in their care or prevent them from going into the child welfare system in the first place.”
CUPE says a significant majority of their clients are indigenous.

Quigley says, ” If we focus on keeping Indigenous families together, we can prevent people from getting lost to the criminal system in the future.”

One possibility suggested would be to have Legal Aid partner with Indigenous organizations and leaders to create a system of wrap-around legal and social supports aimed at keeping Indigenous families together and reuniting them where they have been fractured.

“The legal status quo is not working for Indigenous peoples,” said Quigley. “We simply can’t jail or apprehend our way out of these systemic issues. We are calling on all levels of government to overhaul a justice system that continues to perpetuate the harms that have been inflicted on Indigenous peoples.”

Quigley’s message is that the Canadian public needs to educate itself about Canada’s colonial history and to consider how it has led to the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in courtrooms and jails. “We, as a country, need to shift our approach to policing, our over-reliance on jails, and our obsession with apprehending Indigenous children from their families. Indigenous communities need the support and funding to devise their own solutions to the problems the Canadian government has created over decades where Indigenous peoples have been neglected and abused across these systems, including the residential school system. And Legal Aid needs to be a part of those solutions.”