This week’s authors are NSRLP West Director Andrew Pilliar, Project Coordinator Hayley Waring, and Project Planner Kathy Sinclair. Learn more about the NSRLP West staff on our Team page.

NSRLP West operates on the unceded and occupied traditional territory of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc within Secwépemc’ulucw, the traditional territory of the Secwépemc people.

When Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Faculty of Law professor Andrew Pilliar attended the NSRLP’s 2ndDialogue Event at the University of Windsor in October 2018, little did he know that a few months later, he’d be teaming up with NSRLP and Dr. Julie Macfarlane on something big.

Julie saw the potential for a unique partnership with Andrew and TRU, which is located in Kamloops, in British Columbia’s Central Interior. And so was born NSRLP West: the first partnership between NSRLP and another academic institution. (Initial funding for NSRLP West has been provided by the Law Foundation of British Columbia.)

NSRLP West is an independent endeavour that cooperates, coordinates, and connects with NSRLP on a regular basis – “collaborative, but autonomous” has been our guiding phrase since early days. While the NSRLP is national in scope, NSRLP West focuses on research, advocacy, and access-to-justice issues that affect rural and remote, Indigenous, and northern communities in Western Canada, BC in particular. NSRLP National hopes that West will be the first of several regional “connected but independent” chapters across Canada, with the goal of better understanding and responding to regional needs of SRLs across the country.

NSRLP West launched at the TRU Faculty of Law on October 2, 2019. The event hosted approximately 70 BC SRLs, lawyers, policymakers, judges, academics, and students with an interest in collaborating to improve access to justice in Canada. The launch featured remarks from Julie, Andrew, past SRL/TRU law student Jana Chouinard, and then-TRU Dean of Law, Brad Morse.

Here’s what NSRLP West has been doing since then:

Bringing a Team Together

As a first step, NSRLP West hired a student research assistant (RA) in fall 2019. Sarah Ewart (2L) undertook research and outreach relating to SRLs in BC. She continued to work with NSRLP West through summer 2020.

Once Andrew, as NSRLP West Director, and Moya McAlister, as NSRLP National Liaison, determined staffing needs and job descriptions, Hayley Waring was brought on as NSRLP’s Project Coordinator, and Kathy Sinclair as Project Planner in February 2020. Hayley is responsible for the day-to-day operations of NSRLP West, while Kathy assists with strategic planning.

In May 2020, NSRLP West hired four additional summer RAs from TRU’s law school:  Jana Chouinard (2L), Kendra Barlow (1L), Becca Dickson (2L), and Jenny Bains (2L), who have done great work contributing to the research projects described below. NSRLP West has also engaged two student volunteers from Pro Bono Students Canada to work on legal research projects: Delani Buchan (2L), and Kendra Barlow (1L).

McKenzie Friends Project Completion

What’s a McKenzie Friend? Self-represented litigants may be able to bring a friend or support person to sit with them when appearing before a judge. The team at NSRLP West has compiled a list of BC cases and tribunals in which McKenzie Friends have been mentioned. This list includes information on whether there was any substantive conversation around the support person, what other terms were used to refer to them, whether they were permitted to attend the hearing or not and if so, in what capacity (for example, whether some were allowed to testify as witnesses). This data will form part of a research article exploring what courts’ treatment of McKenzie Friends implies about how the legal system treats people who need assistance.

In spring 2020, we began analyzing how the use of McKenzie Friends has been expanded, qualified, or limited over time. Our work examines the Canadian court system assumption that all individuals before it are autonomous persons, capable of self-representing, and our report will discuss the advantages that McKenzie Friends bring not only to self-represented litigants, but to the efficiency of the justice system as a whole.

Kamloops Registry Research Project

This past May, two of our RAs began developing a project to systematically analyze the number of SRLs in both the Provincial and Supreme Courts in Kamloops. While NSRLP’s national research on SRLs has been ground-breaking, specific data on the incidence rate and types of self-representation in BC courts has not previously been well-developed. NSRLP West’s goal is to shed light on the numbers, to develop a better understanding of SRLs in BC courts. We hope to apply the methodology from this research project to other court registries in the future.

Online Legal Help and Search Engine Optimization Project

This project originally began with a focus on how people use Reddit to search for legal advice. Two RAs began working on this project in May 2020; after reviewing the academic literature on online legal research, the project expanded beyond Reddit. Now the project will investigate how people search for legal information online in general. This is basic research, but it is research that hasn’t been done before, and understanding how and where people look for information online is essential to improving the legal system experience for those navigating a legal problem on their own.

Expanding Our Vision – Integration of Recommendations

In early 2020, the BC Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) published Expanding Our Vision, a report that addresses the systemic and practical reasons behind the low number of Indigenous peoples filing human rights complaints in BC. Written by Ardith Walpetko We’dalx Walkem QC, the report examines how human rights mechanisms and practices can be reformed to better acknowledge and serve Indigenous Peoples. During the summer of 2020, the entire team at NSRLP West read Expanding Our Vision and decided to apply some of its recommendations to our projects. We are honoured to be able to work with Ardith to help lift up and carry forward some of the ideas in her report.

Website and Online Presence

In Spring 2020, we launched the NSRLP West website. It includes an intake form for BC SRLs and a local resource page that focuses on Kamloops and free local legal support, as well as resources that may lie outside the legal realm.

Our summer RAs worked on demystifying a number of BC Provincial Court family law forms for SRLs via “hotspot buttons,” with explanations of terms that website visitors can hover over for needed information. Our goal is to provide some guidance for those working on family law forms on their own. These forms will be reviewed by family lawyers before being published on our website.

NSRLP West was also added to the kamloopscares.ca website during the COVID-19 pandemic, listed as a community resource that assists individuals with life-affecting problems, not just legal issues. Similarly, NSRLP West is now listed on Clicklaw’s Help Map in the community of Kamloops.

And NSRLP West now has Facebook and Twitter accounts – follow us for the latest updates!

Community Outreach and Engagement

NSRLP West has been building relationships with other Access to Justice organizations around the Kamloops region. These include meetings with representatives from TRU’s Community Legal Clinic and the Elizabeth Fry Society’s new legal clinic, to share information and offer support for those organizations. In addition, NSRLP West met with the librarians of the Kamloops Courthouse library to discuss future plans. By reaching out to organizations in our immediate community, we hope that NSRLP West will develop a better understanding of the needs of the self-represented litigants in our area, which will help to inform the direction that our research and advocacy takes.

The COVID-19 pandemic prevented us from launching many of the community-building events we’d planned. But this fall, NSRLP West has been hosting weekend information tables at the downtown Kamloops Farmers’ Market and at the Kweseltken Market at the Kamloopa Powwow Grounds (on the territory of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc) to increase awareness about what we do. While we’re careful to state we don’t provide legal advice, we are happy to help individuals navigate the legal system and to suggest useful resources. We’ve had many fascinating conversations with members of the public, and we regularly hear the phrase, “wow, do I ever wish you were around 20 years ago!”

What’s Next for NSRLP West

Although COVID-19 has presented unexpected challenges, NSRLP West’s first year of operation has been a busy and successful one! In the coming months, we’re particularly looking forward to continuing to reach out to past, present, and future SRLs, as well as legal professionals and organizations, to undertaking even more research and advocacy work, and to working alongside NSRLP National.

One thought on “What’s happening out west? NSRLP West checks in from BC

  1. sandra olson says:

    it seems you are focusing on assuming the self represented are doing things “wrong” and if we only filled out the forms right etc, then magically there would be a smooth system again, This blatantly disregards all previous experience of bias, dishonesty and sharp practice, directed at the self represented by the courts and court staff!! How is this going to change?? By pretending it isn’t happening??

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