Airdrie MLA and Wildrose Shadow Justice Minister Angela Pitt is concerned that funds devoted to legal aid in Alberta aren't reaching the people most in need.

 

Pitt was reacting to the Alberta Auditor General's Report released this week that said the legal aid program in the province risks becoming unsustainable if it doesn't figure out the type and scope of services that it can afford.

Pitt says the report raises some serious red flags about legal aid.  "I hope the government will see this from the report and sort of pull their heads out of the sand when it comes to specifically legal aid and figure out where this money is going and why it isn't getting to the people who need it the most."  

Pitt says it's a common problem with the sitting government.  "Of course the solution for the government is to throw more money at the problem instead of actually going in and fixing the problems within the system."

In his report, Auditor General Merwan Saher said that funding for the legal aid program had doubled since 2005 but cost savings that have been identified won't be enough to stop the need for stop gap funding for 2017 - 2018.  He says unless the province continues to increase financial support for the program, it may need to reallocate cash from other departments to meet the funding pressures.

Pitt is shocked that legal aid only just added any type of performance measures in the department.  She says, "We can't make changes to systems if we don't have a way to measure them or if we're not keeping proper recordings of information.  Again, this is a consistent theme among this government and the previous government, is there weren't a lot of those systems put in place.  At the end of the day we don't know what needs to be changed if we're not tracking information and if we're not setting any targets to be achieved."

The Auditor General was also critical of the Advanced Education ministry, saying it couldn't provide documentation for the required pre-approval for out of province ministerial travel.  Saher did say the premier's office and some other ministries were overseeing travel properly.  

 

Questions, comments or story ideas? Email us at news@discoverairdrie.com