200 legal aid lawyers on strike, demand equal pay with Crown attorneys

There are no legal aid lawyers at work in Montreal, Laval, the Laurentians, Lanaudière, Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie Tuesday morning.

The lawyers, who are part of unions affiliated with the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), are on a half-day strike.

They are expected to return to work at 1:30 p.m.

The unions represent about half of the 400 legal aid lawyers across the province.

They have set up picket lines in front of legal aid offices in their regions and, by lunchtime, are expected to converge on local courthouses to demonstrate.

The lawyers have been without a working contract since Dec. 31, 2019, and are protesting against the Treasury Board's refusal to maintain pay parity with Crown attorneys.

The previous collective agreement had agreed to this equality, so the lawyers say they don't understand this about-face by their employer.

An independent committee recommends salary conditions for Crown prosecutors, who obtained an increase of 10 per cent over four years.

Quebec has offered legal aid lawyers the same increase as public services -- six per cent over three years.

President of the Montreal and Laval legal aid lawyers' union, Justine Lambert-Boulianne, points out her members take on many cases the government considers high priority, such as youth rights, conjugal claims and sexual violence.

Lambert-Boulianne believes that the time has come for Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette to intervene as Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel has yet to be moved.

She argues legal aid lawyers plead "the same cases before the same courts and the same judges as Crown prosecutors."

The union argues LeBel and Jolin-Barrette, both lawyers, have already spoken out in favour of salary parity between legal aid lawyers and Crown attorneys in the past.

CSN union members voted unanimously in favour of a three-day strike mandate.

Since they are not subject to the Essential Services Act, cases that were scheduled to proceed Tuesday morning were suspended and postponed, for the most part, to the afternoon.

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 24, 2022.