Report Back: Parkdale Community Legal Services AGM 2015

By Stephen Donahue

After a nice meal and celebrations for those receiving the PCLS Community Partner Award and the Dorothy Leatch Award it was time to get down to the business of the Parkdale Community Legal Services AGM for 2015. A relaxed spirit that had permeated the assembly room at Bonar Presbyterian Church up to that time gave way to a confrontational tone. The AGM began with the chair making reference to a letter received by the PCLS board from Concerned Parkdale. The chair said that the contents of the letter would not be discussed and that it would be ignored. After making a few thinly veiled disparaging remarks about whoever this person or persons called Concerned Parkdale are, those assembled were reminded that order and decorum would be enforced and that the chair had the authority to close the meeting should these not be observed. The same message and confrontational tone began the 17 November 2014 AGM.

The first order of business of course is usually the agenda, approval of the agenda, any additions etc. The chair however advised the assembly that the agenda as presented was concrete. Any motions for additions to it or discussion would be ruled out of order. This immediately began some exchange between some PCLS members and the chair. Questions from the membership concerning the agenda were given short shrift by the chair.

The next agenda item was adoption of the minutes from the 2014 AGM, which took place in with 3 separate meetings over a five month period, and after that the adoption of the financial statement dated 31 March 2015. Both were adopted. There was a question from a member concerning the accuracy of the 2014 AGM minutes. It was not answered. Regarding the fiscal report, a $100,000.00 increase in spending under Professional Services was noted by members. Questions concerning how this happened were ruled out of order.

Missing from the concrete agenda was 2014/2015 Annual Report. It was a typo. The chair called the Annual Report to the attention of the assembly. He moved to have the Annual Report accepted, but then withdrew his motion, such that the Annual Report was not approved at the AGM.

At this point one member asked a question about how or if PCLS invites clients to membership in PCLS. The answer given was that clients are told about membership towards the end of their case. An informal poll after the meeting suggested that this is not actually done.

The final item on the agenda was the election of board of directors. Members raised questions about the two tiered election process, and questioned the affirmation by any positive vote of a PCLS board selected slate. The chair acknowledged that members’ concerns about this process had merit, but stated that as corporate law allows the process, it will continue. A question was asked about how many positions for the board of directors were open. The answer given was that the reappointment of one board member via the affirmation of the board slate and the election of one board member from either an additional board nominee or the membership nominated candidate would fill the seats, after Osgoode Law School got done filling the PCLS board seats they appoint. One other comment from a member concerned the heavy lawyer makeup of the PCLS board. The member recalled that some years past, nominations for community members to the board did not include lawyers.

The results of the election were as follows:

Desiree Warner was reaffirmed for another term on the board. Then, two candidates ran for one open seat. One was nominated by the Board and the other was Parkdale resident Ashleigh Engle, who was nominated by PCLS members. Ashleigh was elected as a board member. The meeting was then adjourned.

End of Transformation Project

Concerned Parkdale is delighted to hear that the “Transformation Project” is finally and formally dead, as per the email below from Jack de Klerk, Co-Chair of the GTA Transformation Group.

This email seems to confirm that the Transformation Project — whose mandate was to close community clinics and replace them with mega service centres — was an initiative of Legal Aid Ontario, and was led by neither clinics nor clinic users.

This success is undoubtedly a result of the incredible community mobilization that sustained opposition to the Transformation Project. Nonetheless, the legal aid system remains inaccessible to many marginalized people; we look forward to continuing to support community voices and initiatives on access to justice issues.

***

Thursday, June 18, 2015

From: Jack DeKlerk (NLS)
Subject: News regarding the GTA Legal Clinics’ Transformation Project.

Dear Colleagues:

On Monday June 15 Marjorie and I met with the GTA Regional Vice President and the CEO and President of Legal Aid Ontario. We were told by LAO that they no longer believed that the deliverables set out in our funding agreement were achievable. It was their opinion that the Steering Committee’s proposed work plan, and the tasks set out by the various sub-committees , would not result in the original objectives of the project being realized. They could see, notwithstanding an ostensible agreement by all with respect to what are the principles of transformation, that there was no agreement amongst the participating clinics as to what the objectives of the project were going forward. It is LAO’s view that the project was taking steps backward to more discussion rather than moving forward with action. On the basis of these observations and conclusions LAO is not prepared to continue funding the project. We are told a letter to this effect will be forthcoming in the next few days, and that Flemingdon Community Legal Services will be asked to return the funds outstanding.

Our next Steering Committee meeting is scheduled for July 14th. We have already been told that the North York Civic Centre committee rooms are not available on July 14th so it is likely we would again meet in downtown Toronto.

We would like to know the will of the Steering Committee with respect to holding this meeting. Please let me know whether your clinic will still be attending the next meeting of the Steering Committee. We need to know whether we are likely to achieve quorum. In addition, please let me know, if you plan to attend, what your clinic would like to discuss on the 14th. We do need to have a substantive agenda in order to justify asking people to come out. Please let me know by June 26th (the end of next week) your views on a further Steering Committee meeting.

Jack de Klerk
Barrister, Solicitor, Notary
Director of Legal Services
Neighbourhood Legal Services
333 Queen St. E, Toronto, ON M5A 1S9
Tel: 416-861-0677 x706
Fax: 416-861-1777

Reminder: Become a PCLS Member by this Thursday!

PCLS will be having its AGM on Wednesday, June 24 at 7PM at Bonar-Parkdale Presbyterian Church.

If you aren’t already a member, make sure you submit your membership application form by Thursday, June 17 if you want to vote at the AGM. Encourage your friends and neighbours to become PCLS members too!

If you don’t know if you’re a member or not or if you’ve not yet received notice from PCLS about the AGM, contact Robert Routh at PCLS: 416-531-2411 x 224 / routhr@lao.on.ca.

Yesterday, we wrote an open letter to the PCLS Board raising three concerns regarding the upcoming AGM (read the full letter here):

1. The board’s proposed election structure prohibits member-nominated candidates from joining the board.
2. PCLS is not actively growing its membership in the community.
3. The board should address recent budgetary issues regarding litigation fees and staff turnover.

As Legal Aid Ontario introduces new changes to Ontario’s legal clinics, and the PCLS board welcomes its fifth new member in 6 months, it is crucial to keep the organization accountable to its community and members.  We need to make sure PCLS is forging a new future rooted in transparency, accountability and community-led organizing.

See you next Wednesday!

Open Letter to PCLS Board Re 2015 AGM

Dear Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS) Board:

We understand that PCLS will be holding this year’s Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 (a copy of the notice to members is available here). We write to raise three concerns regarding the AGM:

1. The AGM structure blocks community-nominated members from joining the board.
2. PCLS is not advising its clients of how to become PCLS members.
3. The AGM should address recent budgetary issues regarding litigation fees and staff turnover.

We explain our concerns in more detail below.

1. The structure you have proposed for the AGM prohibits Parkdale community members from joining the board.

As indicated in the notice, there is only one vacancy on the Board and the Board intends to present a recommended candidate for election. The notice states that this Board-nominated candidate is “to be presented to the members of the Annual General Meeting before any other nominations and is elected by a positive vote for the motion.”

Therefore, not only will the Board’s slate be presented first, but, as the Board stated at last year’s AGM (see one community member’s account of the 2014 AGM here), that member will be elected so long as they receive a single vote.

In other words, there is only one vacancy on the PCLS Board and it will be filled by the Board-nominated candidate. Even though PCLS members are empowered to present their own candidates, the structure you have proposed would mean that by the time a member-nominee is considered at the AGM, the one vacancy on the Board will have already been filled by the Board-nominee.

In both process and result, this proposed system is unfair. Based on the notice, members may invest time and energy into running for the Board and completing the procedural requirements for candidacy. Yet the reality is that no community-nominated member can in fact be elected to the Board. The proposed system wholly blocks community-nominated members from joining the Board.

Importantly, the letter implies that this nomination system is set out “according to the Bylaws of Parkdale Community Legal Services.” Yet there are no provisions in the PCLS Bylaws (available here) for differentiated voting between Board and member nominees.

In fact, we would like to remind the Board that section 19 of the Bylaws provides that the Membership Committee “will develop a recommended slate of candidates for presentation” at the AGM (emphasis added). We do not believe that the “positive vote” system outlined in the Board’s letter reflects the intention of the Bylaws that the Board’s slate be a recommendation (rather than a direction) to voting members in their choice between all nominees.

As a result, there are serious issues with (i) the fact that the Board’s motion occurs before member nominations and (ii) the fact that  Board-nominations require a single vote and member-nominations require elections.

Together, this system prevents community membership in the Board, and thus disregards the intentions and goals of the PCLS Bylaws.This raises a number of serious questions:

1. Who is on the Membership Committee, which the notice states has been tasked with selecting new Board Members? Does this Committee reflect Parkdale’s low-income and racialised demographics? Is this Committee recruiting Board Members who reflect Parkdale’s low-income and racialised demographics?
2. What measures is the Board taking to fulfil section 15 of the PCLS Bylaws, which provides that Board Members “shall reflect the diversity which characterizes the neighbourhoods of Parkdale and Swansea Mews”?
3. When closing files, PCLS students are instructed to note in their closing records whether clients would be a good match for PCLS Board membership. Who is collecting this information, and what is being done with it? Does PCLS invite those clients to join the Board?

2. PCLS is not advising its clients on how to become PCLS members.

We understand that PCLS has not been advising clients — whether new, recurring, or ongoing — of the processes by which they may become members of PCLS. We ask that this be rectified immediately. A yearly notice to existing members is insufficient for ensuring PCLS, in its membership and its operations, reflects the demographics and the needs of the Parkdale neighbourhood.

The apparent failure to recruit new member violates the Bylaws. Section 51 of the PCLS Bylaws provide for the establishment of a Membership and Community Participation Committee, which is meant “to communicate with the residents of the corporation’s service area about the corporation, to recruit members, to serve as a nominating committee for board elections and board committees.”

In light of this disjuncture, we ask:

1. What actions has this Committee taken over the past 12 months to increase community and client membership, and to communicate regularly and transparently with Parkdale residents about changes and activities at PCLS?

3. The proposed AGM would not appear to address critical budgetary issues.

In 2014, the Board hired lawyers from Hansell LLP to represent them in their interactions with community.  Hansell lawyers Brian Calalang, Frédéric Duguay, and Karl Bjurström attended the contested AGM of November 17, 2014.

The last year also also saw significant staff changes at the clinic: we understand that PCLS ended the employment of two full-time staff members in 2014.

These matters raises crucial budgetary issues:

1. How much did it cost to retain Hansell LLP? Out of which budget were the Hansell LLP lawyers paid?
2. Whose decision was it to retain Hansell LLP and why?
3. Is Hansell LLP still retained? If so, for what purpose?
4. Has PCLS ever retained lawyers in the past? If so, for what purpose?
5. How much did ending the contracts of the two staff members cost (including any severance/notice, litigation, or other fees)? Does PCLS intend to replace these positions?  If so, how, when, and with whom?

If an answer to these questions is not possible in advance of the AGM, please confirm that they will be addressed at the AGM itself.

Sincerely,
Concerned Parkdale