Legal Aid Ontario and Nye Thomas

provincial investment: Legal Aid Ontario is to announce the funding on Friday, according to Toronto Star. This is a provincial investment that will significantly improve the legal aid services in Ontario, said Nye Thomas, the LAO director general in policy and strategic research. After years of stagnant funding to assist vulnerable groups with unique language and cultural needs, the so-called ethnocultural legal clinics are expected to receive a $86,000 raise in annual operational funding. The funding will effectively address the concerns raised previously by the ethnolinguistic clinics. This week, the three clinics have all been told by the LAO that they will each receive an extra $86,000 for the 2014-15 fiscal year. The Metro Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario and the African Canadian Legal Clinic — which serve minority groups across the province — were concerned the new funding would be based simply on the poverty rate of the population within a clinic geographical boundaries, and not reflect actual caseloads that go far beyond. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.