On March 6, Justice Canada announced that the Nova Scotia Legal Aid Commission (NSLAC) has been receiving $354,842 over a four-year period for a pilot project that aims to increase legal supports and services for inmates housed in the federal and provincial prisons within the province.
The flow of federal money began in 2022 and will continue until 2026, a Justice Canada spokesperson confirmed. As for the timing of the announcement, they said it is “to raise awareness of the [NSLAC’s] project.”
“Funding for this project had not been announced since it was put in place in 2022,” said Ian McLeod. “The project promotes equity and fairness for incarcerated racialized individuals … by supporting their unique needs as they navigate through the criminal justice system.”
According to a news release describing the announcement, the Prison Law Support Worker pilot promotes equity and “empowerment” for jailed racialized people, particularly African Canadian and Indigenous inmates — both of which “experience disproportionate rates of incarceration in the province.”
Federal Minister of Justice and Attorney General Arif Virani called the overrepresentation of racialized people in prisons “a serious and complex issue rooted in systemic racism and the legacy of colonialism.”
“By supporting the [NSLAC], we are helping bring systemic change and improving access to justice and fairness in our justice system for racialized individuals,” said Virani in a statement.
Program support workers provide various services: They help self-represented inmates with legal information and research — the types of which they would not otherwise be able to access while incarcerated, they triage those needing legal advice, they review legal documents, they prepare court documents and assist with developing release plans.
According to the release, the money is being provided through the federal government’s Justice Partnership and Innovation Program, which provides funding for projects that support “a fair, relevant and accessible Canadian justice system.”
Nova Scotia has a long and unique history when it comes to the scourge of anti-Black racism. But moves have been made toward a reckoning.
In the summer of 2021, the province’s Appeal Court drove home the need to for sentencing judges to use special reports when handing down punishments to Black offenders. These reports, titled Impact of Race and Culture Assessments, look at the history of poverty, discrimination and overincarceration many of them face.
A year before that, Nova Scotia’s Supreme Court delivered a historic decision in which it righted a “historical wrong” of denying land ownership to African Nova Scotians.
In late 2022, Dalhousie University’s law school launched a mandatory first year course on anti-Black racism in both Nova Scotia and Canada.
And last month, community organizations in Nova Scotia were able to start applying for the Community Network Grant, a provincial initiative that helps fund projects aimed at helping underserved groups, including those in the province’s Black and Indigenous communities.
According to Statistics Canada 2021 census information, Black Nova Scotians make up about three per cent of the province’s population.
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