Legal Aid in Canada 2023-24

This year’s report includes data from the 2023-24 fiscal year, as well as trend data from the past five years.

Between 2021 and 2023, the Government of Canada provided additional funding resources for criminal and immigration and refugee legal aid services, as part of a broader effort to promote equity and fairness within the justice system, and to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples, Black and other racialized groups in the criminal justice system. In addition, Justice Canada introduced a new initiative in 2021-22, Impact of Race and Culture Assessments (IRCAs). IRCAs help sentencing judges understand how experiences such as poverty, marginalization, racism, and social exclusion of Black and racialized offenders impact an offenders’ interaction with the justice system. This year’s annual report includes data showing the use of IRCAs over the first three years of funding.

In 2023-24 the justice system continued to experience the pressures of sustained backlogs and longer case processing times in the courts, which were exacerbated by the COVID 19 pandemic. In the legal aid context, data from 2023-24 show that the legal aid system has returned to or surpassed pre-pandemic revenues, expenditures, and case volumes.

In addition, there were significant increases in expenditures and case volumes in immigration and refugee legal aid services in 2023-24. Unprecedented numbers of asylum claimants, coupled with a large backlog of cases, created extensive pressures on legal aid service providers. To ensure that services were not suspended in jurisdictions facing extraordinary pressures, additional funding was required so that services remained available throughout the fiscal year.

The data collection for Legal Aid in Canada is done at a national level; however, some legal aid plans may be unable to report all or some data elements in certain years. Due to these limitations, Canada-level totals may not include all provinces and territories; this is noted where applicable.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Last Updated October 20, 2025, 02:25 (UTC)
Created October 20, 2025, 02:25 (UTC)
Domain / Topic
Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title
Title for the Dataset.
Legal Aid in Canada 2023-24
Description
A description of the dataset.

This year’s report includes data from the 2023-24 fiscal year, as well as trend data from the past five years.

Between 2021 and 2023, the Government of Canada provided additional funding resources for criminal and immigration and refugee legal aid services, as part of a broader effort to promote equity and fairness within the justice system, and to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples, Black and other racialized groups in the criminal justice system. In addition, Justice Canada introduced a new initiative in 2021-22, Impact of Race and Culture Assessments (IRCAs). IRCAs help sentencing judges understand how experiences such as poverty, marginalization, racism, and social exclusion of Black and racialized offenders impact an offenders’ interaction with the justice system. This year’s annual report includes data showing the use of IRCAs over the first three years of funding.

In 2023-24 the justice system continued to experience the pressures of sustained backlogs and longer case processing times in the courts, which were exacerbated by the COVID 19 pandemic. In the legal aid context, data from 2023-24 show that the legal aid system has returned to or surpassed pre-pandemic revenues, expenditures, and case volumes.

In addition, there were significant increases in expenditures and case volumes in immigration and refugee legal aid services in 2023-24. Unprecedented numbers of asylum claimants, coupled with a large backlog of cases, created extensive pressures on legal aid service providers. To ensure that services were not suspended in jurisdictions facing extraordinary pressures, additional funding was required so that services remained available throughout the fiscal year.

The data collection for Legal Aid in Canada is done at a national level; however, some legal aid plans may be unable to report all or some data elements in certain years. Due to these limitations, Canada-level totals may not include all provinces and territories; this is noted where applicable.
Tags / Keywords
Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc)
File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size
Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier
Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date
Published date of the dataset.
2025-08-20
Time Period Data Span (start date)
Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date)
End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span
A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.
Field Value
Access category
Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License
License used to access the dataset.
Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use
Limits on use of data.
Location
Location of the dataset.
https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/efc119f3-ea23-4d8c-8fa9-efa9c0c6d19c
Data Service
Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner
Owner of the dataset.
Department of Justice Canada | Ministère de la Justice Canada
Contact Point
Who to contact regarding access?
Contact Point Email
The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher
Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email
Email of the publisher.
[email protected]
Author
Author of the dataset.
Author Email
Email of the author.
Accessed At
Date the data and metadata was accessed.
Field Value
Identifier
Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language
Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description
A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals
Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals
Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data
Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type
Platform type of the source portal.
Field Value
Version
Version of the datatset
None
Source
Source of the dataset.
None
Version notes
Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset
Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions
Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text
Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL
Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution
Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters
Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions)
Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.
Field Value
Indigenous Community Permission
Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission
Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about
Indigenous communities from which data is derived.
Field Value
Number of data rows
If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns
If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells
If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations
If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities
If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties
If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality
Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality
A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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